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Irritatingly, he was also forced to admit that attractive did not adequately describe her classical beauty. She had changed into jeans and a plain white T-shirt. There was nothing remarkable about her clothes but he could not help noticing how the denim moulded her pert bottom and the clingy cotton shirt revealed the upwards tilt of her breasts. Her long hair was caught up in a ponytail, with a few feathery strands framing her face, and the transformation from sophisticated secretary to a look that was both wholesome and yet sexy stirred a purely masculine response in Nicolo.
‘What deal?’ he growled.
Sophie felt a surge of triumph that she seemed to be getting somewhere with Nicolo but she was careful not to reveal her satisfaction in her voice. ‘If you will allow me to stay and try to persuade you to attend the shareholders’ meeting, I’ll cook for you.’ She smiled. ‘Without wanting to boast, I’m a very good cook.’
Nicolo shrugged. ‘I have to warn you that you’ll be wasting your time, Miss Ashdown. I have no intention of being Christos Giatrakos’s puppet.’
‘All I’m asking is that you listen to me. Also, Christos wants me to stay for a few days and sort through some of the files that your father kept here.’
Sophie took Nicolo’s silence as agreement. ‘Which bedroom should I sleep in?’ she asked breezily. ‘As we are going to be housemates, maybe you could drop the Miss Ashdown and call me Sophie?’
‘Housemates!’ Nicolo’s eyes glinted. ‘Don’t push your luck—Sophie.’
Dio, he had never met a woman so determined to have her own way! For some inexplicable reason Nicolo’s eyes were drawn to Sophie Ashdown’s mouth. Her lips were soft and moist and temptingly kissable and he found himself imagining crushing her mouth beneath his own and kissing her until she was in no doubt that he was master of Chatsfield House.
Madonna, that was not a path he wanted to go down, he reminded himself. He had no interest in Christos Giatrakos’s ultra-confident, ultra-irritating personal assistant. He could physically evict her from the house again, but she would probably find a way of getting back in. She had proved herself to be surprisingly resourceful. His jaw tightened with irritation as he acknowledged that he would have to put up with her presence for a couple of days. Once she’d got the message that he would not change his mind about the shareholders’ meeting she would presumably take herself back to London.
‘You can use the room at the far end of the second-floor landing,’ he told her abruptly. ‘It has a good view of the Chiltern Hills from the window.’
‘Thank you,’ Sophie murmured. To her annoyance her voice sounded faintly breathless. She had noticed how Nicolo’s gaze had lingered on her breasts, and she prayed he could not tell that her nipples had hardened beneath her bra. She was supremely aware of his potent masculinity and dismayed by the subtle undercurrent of sexual tension that she sensed between them. The last thing she wanted was to be attracted to Nicolo Chatsfield!
Feeling flustered, she swung away from him and walked over to the range cooker. ‘If you need to carry on working in your study, I’ll call you when dinner is ready.’
He muttered something beneath his breath that to Sophie’s sharp sense of hearing sounded like ‘bossy madam.’ She could not tear her eyes from him as he shrugged off his leather coat, revealing a black silk shirt that moulded his muscular torso. He pulled the glove from his left hand and she gasped when she saw his discoloured skin. The scarring had the distinctive mottled appearance of a burn injury, covering his fingers and the back of his hand and disappearing beneath his shirtsleeve. Sophie wondered how far up his arm the scar went.
Her eyes flew to his face. Nicolo had stiffened at her reaction and his expression was shuttered so that she had no idea what he was thinking.
‘I couldn’t help noticing your hand,’ she said shakily. ‘Christos told me that you were badly hurt in a fire years ago at the Chatsfield.’
When he made no response she continued, ‘You saved someone’s life. The papers said you were a hero.’
Nicolo gave a harsh laugh and his mouth twisted in an expression of bleak bitterness that shocked Sophie.
‘You shouldn’t believe everything you read in newspapers,’ he said savagely. Spinning round, he strode out of the kitchen and across the hall to his study, closing the door behind him with a resounding slam that made Sophie wonder how the leaded-light windows had any glass panes left in them.
* * *
Hero! The word echoed inside Nicolo’s head, mocking him, taunting him. He sank down onto a chair and thumped his fist on the desk. Sophie did not know the truth. No one did, apart from his family. The newspaper reports about the fire in his father’s penthouse suite had only told half the story. They had said that the teenage Nicolo Chatsfield had saved the life of a chambermaid trapped in the fire—but he was no goddamned hero, Nicolo thought heavily. He had been a stupid, scared little boy. It had been he who had caused the fire. His father had managed to keep the facts from the media, but the terrible secret had hung like a weight around Nicolo’s neck for all of his adult life.
For many years he had buried the truth deep inside him and enjoyed the media spotlight, playing up to his reputation as the playboy hero. His life had been one long round of parties, champagne and a constant supply of beautiful women in his bed. He had not cared about anything other than his own selfish gratification. It was as if, after the months of suffering he had endured as his burns had slowly healed, it was somehow his right to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh that had experienced agonising pain.
For how long would he have continued to live a shallow, unprincipled life? Nicolo wondered. If the chambermaid Marissa Bisek hadn’t come to him eight years ago to beg him for financial help it was likely that he would still be a degenerate womaniser. The memory of the man he had been then filled him with shame. Dio, he had looked at the poor chambermaid, who had been horrifically scarred in the fire and yet was pathetically grateful to him for saving her, and his world had crumbled.
Faced with the evidence of his culpability, he had been forced to acknowledge he was not the hero that everyone, including Marissa, believed. The ugly scars covering his body were his punishment for his childhood crime. After meeting Marissa he had wanted to crawl away and hide beneath a stone like the worthless creature he was. But the chambermaid’s lack of self-pity shamed him further. He had realised that he had a choice. He could sit around feeling sorry for himself, or he could turn his life around and do something worthwhile.
And so he had set up a charity to help other burn victims, and for the past eight years he had devoted himself to raising funds for the charity. He wasn’t a hero, Nicolo thought bleakly, but he was doing his best to atone for the sins of his past.
For a moment he tried to imagine Sophie Ashdown’s reaction if he told her the truth about himself. No doubt she would be disgusted. She might even rush back to London to tell her boss that Nicolo Chatsfield had no moral right to be involved in the family’s hotel business.
Nicolo was impatient for Sophie to leave Chatsfield House, yet he could not bring himself to admit the truth to her. He did not want to risk seeing the same horrified expression in her eyes that he had witnessed when she had noticed the scars on his hand. He could only imagine her reaction if she ever saw the grotesque scars that covered one side of his chest. Beneath his clothes he had the body of a beast, and he was sure Beauty would recoil from him if he ever revealed his true self to her.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_020b79d2-dc71-5733-ad2d-922b6d78fe7c)
EVIDENTLY SHE HAD touched a nerve with Nicolo when she had mentioned the fire, Sophie mused. She only knew a few sketchy details about the incident that had happened almost twenty years ago. According to the newspaper report Nicolo had risked his life to save a member of the hotel staff from the blaze but he had been severely burned.
She had no idea why he had reacted so violently to her calling him a hero. He was a complicated man, she thought with a sigh.
She had not seen him since he had stormed into his study forty-five minutes ago. The trout had taken ages to bake in the old range cooker because Sophie had forgotten to change the thermostat to a higher heat setting. The delay had given her a chance to find the guest bedroom, unpack and take a quick shower, but now her stomach was protesting that it was hours since she’d eaten a couple of apples in the car on her journey to Buckinghamshire.
‘You’ve already had your dinner,’ she told Dorcha as the wolfhound nudged her with his big head. She could not resist the appeal in his liquid eyes and gave him another dog treat. ‘You’re gorgeous, and so friendly—not like your bad-tempered master.’
‘I’m hurt by your opinion of me,’ drawled a sardonic voice.
Sophie looked across the kitchen and flushed as Nicolo strolled through the door.
‘I don’t think you are. I don’t think you give a damn about anyone’s opinion of you,’ she said meditatively.
He gave a careless shrug that drew her attention to his broad shoulders. She guessed from his damp hair which fell past his collar that he had showered recently. He had changed out of jeans and boots into tailored black trousers and a white shirt with long sleeves that fell low over his wrists but did not completely hide his burned hand.
The ugly scars did not lessen the impact of his smouldering sensuality. His dark, brooding looks reminded Sophie of a Byronic hero from a nineteenth century novel. No wonder Heathcliff and Mr Rochester were regarded as archetypal sex symbols, she thought as she quickly looked away from Nicolo and took a deep breath to try and steady her racing heart.
There was an air of mystery about him, and the cynical half smile on his lips both repelled and attracted her. His arrogant, devil-may-care attitude threw out a challenge to women to try and tame him, but Sophie had a feeling that no woman ever would.
She busied herself with taking the trout from the oven and draining the potatoes over the sink. ‘I didn’t know if you usually eat in the kitchen or the dining room, and you weren’t around to ask,’ she said pointedly, ‘so I decided to lay the dining table.’ She picked up the plates of food. ‘Can you bring the salad?’
‘Are you always this bossy?’ Nicolo asked drily as he followed her.
‘I prefer the description “organised and efficient.” It’s why I’m good at my job. To be honest you could do with a bit more efficiency around here,’ Sophie told him. ‘The house is a mess inside, and outside it’s even worse. You can’t expect one cleaning lady to manage a house this size. Why don’t you employ more staff to take care of Chatsfield? I’m sure you can afford to. Christos said—’ She broke off when Nicolo frowned darkly.
He sat down opposite her at the dining table and leaned back in his chair, studying her from beneath heavy eyelids. ‘Christos said what?’
‘That you have made a fortune on the stock market. Obviously I can’t tell you how to spend your money …’
‘But I sense you are going to tell me anyway.’
She flushed at his sarcastic tone. ‘It seems a shame to let this grand old house fall to ruin. You grew up at Chatsfield, didn’t you? Surely you have happy memories of living here?’
‘A few, but I also have some not so happy memories.’
Sophie looked surprised. ‘I would have thought that living in a great big house with your brothers and sisters, and having the huge Chatsfield estate to play in and explore, must have been wonderful—running wild in the countryside, having picnics and coming home to your parents at the end of the day.’
‘It’s a nice fantasy,’ Nicolo said drily, ‘but my childhood wasn’t as idyllic as you seem to think. My parents weren’t around that much. My father was away in London running the Chatsfield Hotel business and my mother was—’ he hesitated ‘—unwell a lot of the time.’
He guessed depression was a form of illness. When he had been a young boy he had not understood the reason for his mother’s frequent crying bouts, or why she locked herself in her room and refused to see any of her children.
Memories resurfaced of him standing outside her bedroom, begging to be allowed in.
‘I want to see you, Mamma. I want to hug you, and then you will stop crying.’
‘Go away, Nicolo. Leave me alone.’
His mother’s rejection had hurt. He had thought perhaps he had done something wrong that had made her not love him anymore. Nicolo recalled how he had spent hours sitting on the floor outside his mother’s bedroom, because he had wanted to be near her.
‘So who took care of all the children in place of your parents?’ Sophie’s voice pulled Nicolo back to the present.
‘We had nannies. But none of them stayed for very long because our bad behaviour made them leave,’ he admitted wryly.
The baked trout was delicious, and for a few minutes Sophie concentrated on eating, but she was curious to learn more about her reluctant host.
‘What happened after you were burned in the fire?’ she asked tentatively, hoping he would not react angrily to her mentioning what had obviously been a traumatic event in his life. ‘Did your mother take care of you while you were recovering from your injuries?’
‘She wasn’t around by then.’ Nicolo’s jaw tightened as he relived memories that were still as raw as his burned flesh had once been. ‘My mother left the family when I was twelve years old. She did not know about the fire—or if she did hear she did not care about me enough to come and visit me during the many months I spent in a specialist burns unit.’
‘Oh, that’s awful.’ Sophie’s reaction was instinctively sympathetic. She knew from Christos that Liliana Chatsfield had walked out on her husband and children and had not been seen by any of the family again. Surely if Liliana had known her son had been badly burned she would have rushed to be with him?
The circumstances were different, but she understood what it felt like to be abandoned by a parent. True, she had remained in contact with her father after he had left. Her cancer had been in remission when James Ashdown had announced that he was leaving his wife and daughter to start a new life with his mistress. But Sophie had been devastated by her father’s decision. She could imagine the sense of rejection Nicolo must have felt when he had been lying injured in hospital and had desperately needed his mother.
‘You must have missed her,’ she said softly, ‘especially while you were in hospital.’
His expression was shuttered and Sophie had a strong sense that he disliked talking about his past.
‘She couldn’t have done anything to help,’ he said curtly. ‘I owe my recovery to the doctors and the nursing staff who looked after me. I didn’t need my mother fussing around me.’
Sophie found that hard to believe. She had certainly needed her mother’s support during her illness, and in a funny way her cancer had brought them closer together. While she had been growing up, her mother, Carole, had been busy with her career and Sophie had spent more time with her father. But when she had been diagnosed with cancer her mother had cut down on her work to be with Sophie while she was in hospital.
Had her father felt pushed out by the close bond that had developed between mother and daughter? Sophie wondered. Was that why he’d had an affair with another woman, which had ultimately broken up the family and broken Sophie’s heart?
She pushed the thought away and focused her attention on Nicolo. He had sounded dismissive of his mother, but Sophie sensed that he was adept at hiding his emotions and, in fact, had been deeply hurt by Liliana’s desertion and her failure to visit him when he had been injured.
‘How did the fire at the hotel start?’ she asked curiously.
‘I don’t know,’ he growled. ‘Why are you so interested? It was a long time ago. Trust me, Miss Ashdown, it is better to leave the past alone. I am growing impatient with you poking your nose into things that don’t concern you.’
Oh, dear, they were back to him calling her Miss Ashdown again. Clearly the slight thaw in Nicolo’s attitude towards her was over. Sophie regretted her curiosity. She had been trying to gain a better understanding of Nicolo but she’d hit a brick wall.
‘I’m just wondering why you are so opposed to helping restore the Chatsfield name to what it once was,’ she murmured. ‘The brand used to be synonymous with elegance and good taste, but that is no longer true. Frankly, every time the Chatsfield name features in the press it is usually followed by reports of scandalous behaviour by one of your siblings.’
Ignoring Nicolo’s deepening frown, Sophie continued, ‘It’s not surprising that your father wants to change the way the business is perceived. Gene is trying to do what is best for the Chatsfield. You might not understand the reason for some of his decisions but I truly believe he has acted the way he has because he loves his children and wants to help them. That is why he has appointed Christos as CEO. Because he thinks Christos can turn the hotel business’s fortunes around. But Christos needs the support of the shareholders—which means you. Surely, out of respect for your father, you should attend the shareholders’ meeting?’
‘My father is to blame for many of the company’s problems,’ Nicolo bit out. ‘It was his behaviour that first tarnished the Chatsfield name, and it was because of what he did that my mother …’
‘Your mother—what?’ Sophie broke the tense silence that had fallen. ‘And what did your father do? I don’t understand.’
‘You don’t need to understand.’ Nicolo scraped back his chair and stood up. ‘None of this is any of your concern.’
‘But you should be concerned,’ she said intently. ‘If you refuse to cooperate with Christos your father has threatened to disinherit you and withhold the allowance you receive from the Chatsfield family trust fund.’
‘I don’t give a damn about the bloody money.’ Nicolo put his hands flat on the table in front of Sophie and leaned in close so that she was forced to meet his glittering gaze. ‘Giatrakos was right about one thing. I’ve made a fortune on the financial markets. I don’t need handouts from my father and I don’t care what happens to the Chatsfield Hotel chain.’
‘But you do care about your brothers and sisters, and especially Lucilla,’ Sophie said intuitively. ‘You say you’re not interested in the Chatsfield, but Lucilla cares about it, and for her sake you should consider attending the shareholders’ meeting.’
‘It seems to me that the best way I can help my sister is to refuse to go along with what Christos wants. I have no problem with being a thorn in his side,’ Nicolo said harshly.
He trapped Sophie’s gaze and she felt swamped by the force of his powerful personality. ‘You’ve lost the argument, Miss Ashdown, and tomorrow morning you can trot back to your boss and tell him that my answer hasn’t changed. I will not be at the meeting.’
He moved abruptly away from the table and Sophie released her pent-up breath on a shaky sigh as she was freed from Nicolo’s magnetic spell. She was shocked by her reaction to him. While he had been leaning across the table her eyes had zeroed in on his mouth and she had found herself fantasizing about him slanting his lips over hers. Her instincts warned her he would not be a gentle lover. There was something faintly barbaric about the stern line of his mouth and she sensed his kiss would be fiercely passionate and mercilessly demanding.
No way was she interested in Nicolo, Sophie assured herself as she watched him stride out of the room. The men she dated were liberal, open-minded and completely comfortable with equality between the sexes—definitely not the kind of men who would haul a woman over their shoulder and carry her off in the manner of a primitive heathen.
She collected up the dinner plates and carried them out to the kitchen. As she loaded the dishwasher her thoughts returned to Nicolo, and she gave a rueful sigh. She doubted he had even heard of the term New Man. She was annoyed by her inexplicable fascination with him. It wasn’t as if she was looking for a man. She was no longer in love with Richard, but she could never forget the reason why he had ended their relationship and the hurt had not completely faded. Her inability to give Richard the family he wanted had made her feel deficient, and the sense of abandonment she had felt when he had broken off their relationship had brought back memories of how she had felt abandoned by her father.
Her attraction to Nicolo was simply sexual chemistry, Sophie reminded herself. She had no intention of giving in to the disturbing feelings he evoked in her. Dangerously sexy highway-men were fine in historical romance novels but they had no place in real life.
* * *
Sophie did not know what had woken her. For a moment she felt disorientated. The intense darkness in her room was thick and muffling, as only the darkness of the countryside was without the gleam through the curtains of car headlamps or street lights that polluted the night sky in towns and cities. The luminous dial on her watch showed that it was 3:00 a.m. From far away she heard a low rumble of thunder. Maybe that was what had disturbed her?
She settled back down on the pillows, but now that she was awake she was conscious of strange noises in an unfamiliar house. The tick of the grandfather clock on the landing seemed overly loud, and she prayed that the scrabbling sound from the wardrobe wasn’t a mouse. Her heart missed a beat as she became aware of another noise.
Someone was in her room!
She could hear heavy, panting breaths coming closer to the bed.
Tense with fear, she put out a hand and groped for the lamp on the bedside table. Her fingers came into contact with something hairy and she stifled a scream as she felt hot breath on her face.
Frantically she managed to locate the lamp switch and turned it on.
‘Oh, heavens! Dorcha!’ she gasped when she saw the dog. Relief flooded through her as the huge hound nuzzled her arm. ‘You terrified me. I thought …’
She had thought all sorts of stupid things. Only children were worried about ghosts and things that went bump in the night, Sophie acknowledged ruefully. ‘Go back to your basket,’ she instructed the wolfhound. ‘I’m going to try and get to sleep.’
But as she reached to turn off the lamp she heard loud shouts, followed by a dreadful groaning that chilled her blood.
It sounded as though someone, or something, was in terrible pain. The groaning came again and Sophie knew she had not imagined it. Apart from Dorcha, only she and Nicolo were in the house. Silence fell, and she held her breath. But then it came again, this time a cry of such raw agony that she could not bear it. Jumping out of bed, she did not waste time pulling on her dressing gown as she hurried out of her bedroom and along the landing.
She did not know where Nicolo’s room was, but the groans were coming from the far end of the corridor. Sophie hesitated outside the bedroom door as another desperate cry came from within, and it occurred to her that maybe a burglar had broken into the house and was attacking Nicolo.
Swallowing, she picked up a heavy pewter vase from the bureau and, gripping it tightly, she turned the door handle.
The moon was on this side of the house and it cast faint grey light through the chink in the curtains. Sophie could make out a shadowy figure lying on the bed, but there was no one else in the room. Nicolo gave a low cry that sounded as though it had been torn from his soul. What hellish place was his mind trapped in? she wondered as she stepped farther into the room.
‘Nicolo …’ she said softly.
‘Get out!’ He shouted harshly. ‘For God’s sake, go!’
‘All right, I’m going. I’m sorry.’ Sophie shot out of the door, hot-faced with embarrassment. Clearly she had been wrong and he hadn’t been asleep and dreaming. Heaven knew why he had been making those blood-curdling groans, but she wasn’t going to go back in and ask him.
She scuttled back along the landing, but his shouts followed her.
