Holly looked at his grimly set mouth and the dark shadow of sexy stubble that surrounded it. The clench of his jaw suggested he was only just holding on to his temper.

Her heart began to thump—but not out of fear. It wasn’t Julius she was afraid of but her reaction to him. She had never felt her body react in this way. His touch triggered something raw and primal in her. She had never felt her body ache. Pulse and contract with a longing she couldn’t describe because she had never felt it quite like this before. She wasn’t a virgin, but none of her few sexual encounters had made her flesh sing like this. He hadn’t even kissed her and yet she felt as if she was on a knife-edge. Every nerve in her body was standing up and waiting. Anticipating. Wanting. Hungering.

And then he suddenly dropped his hands from her arms. The movement was so unexpected she nearly toppled backwards into the pool, but somehow managed to regain her balance. She maintained her composure—just—with a cool look cast his way.

‘One thing you should note,’ she said. ‘I don’t take orders. Not from you or from anyone.’

The Ravensdale Scandals

Scandal is this family’s middle name!

With notoriously famous parents, the Ravensdale children grew up in the limelight. But nothing could have prepared them for this latest scandal … the revelation of a Ravensdale love-child!

London’s most eligible siblings find themselves in the eye of their own paparazzi storm.

They’re determined to fight back— they just never factored in falling in love too …!

Find out what happens in

Julius Ravensdale’s story

Ravensdale’s Defiant Captive December 2015

Miranda Ravensdale’s story

Awakening the Ravensdale Heiress January 2016

And watch for Jake and Katherine’s

Ravensdale Scandals … coming soon!

Ravensdale’s

Defiant Captive

Melanie Milburne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

An avid romance reader, MELANIE MILBURNE loves writing the kind of books that gave her so much joy as she was busy getting married to her own hero and raising a family. Now a USA TODAY bestselling author, she has won several awards—including The Australian Readers’ Association most popular category/series romance in 2008 and the prestigious Romance Writers of Australia R*BY award in 2011.

She loves to hear from readers!

MelanieMilburne.com.au Facebook.com/Melanie.Milburne Twitter @MelanieMilburn1

To Ella Carey,

a talented writer, a dear friend and a wonderful person.

I love our writing chats! xxx

Contents

Cover

Introduction

The Ravensdale Scandals

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

JULIUS RAVENSDALE KNEW his housekeeper was up to something as soon as she brought in his favourite dessert. ‘Queen’s pudding?’ He raised one of his brows. ‘I never have dessert at lunch unless it’s a special occasion.’

‘It is a special occasion,’ Sophia said as she put the meringue-topped dessert in front of him.

He narrowed his gaze. ‘Okay, tell me. What’s going on?’

Sophia’s expression was sheepish. ‘I’m bringing in a girl to help me run the house. It’s only for a month until this wretched tendonitis settles. The extra pair of hands will be so helpful and I’ll be doing my bit for society. It’s a win-win.’

Julius glanced at the wrist brace Sophia had been wearing for the past couple of weeks. He knew she worked far too hard and could do with the extra help but he liked to keep the staff numbers down in the villa. Not because he was mean about paying them. He would pay them triple to stay away and let him get on with his work. ‘Who is it?’

‘Just a girl who’s in need of a bit of direction.’

Julius mentally rolled his eyes. Of all the housekeepers he could have chosen, he had employed the Argentinian reincarnation of Mother Teresa. ‘I thought we agreed your lame ducks were restricted to the stables or the gardens?’

‘I know, but this girl will go to prison if—’

‘Prison?’ he said. ‘You’re bringing a convicted criminal here?’

‘She’s only been in trouble a couple of times,’ Sophia said. ‘Anyway, maybe the guy deserved it.’

‘What did she do to him?’

‘She keyed his brand-new sports car.’

Julius’s gut clenched at the thought of his showroom-perfect Aston Martin housed in the garage. ‘I suppose she said it was an accident?’

‘No, she admitted to it,’ Sophia said. ‘She was proud of it. That and the message she sprayed on his lawn with weed killer.’

‘She sounds delightful.’

‘So you’ll agree to have her?’

Julius took in his housekeeper’s hopeful expression. His sarcasm was lost on her. Sophia was the most charitable person he knew. Always doing things for others. Always looking for a way to make a difference in someone’s life. He knew she was lonely since both her adult children had moved abroad for work. What would it hurt to indulge her just this once? He would be busy with fine-tuning his space software. He had less than a month to iron out the kinks in the programming before he presented it to the research team for funding approval.

He let out a long breath. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever thought of taking up knitting or cross-stitch instead?’

Sophia beamed at him. ‘Just wait until you meet her. You’re going to love her.’

* * *

Holly considered making a run for it when the van stopped but the size of the villa and its surrounds made her pause. It was big. Way big. Massive. It probably had its own area code. Maybe its own political party. It was four storeys high, built in a neo-classical style with spectacular gardens and lush, rolling fields fringed by thick forest. It didn’t look anything like the detention centre she’d envisaged. There was no twelve-foot-high fence with electrified barbed wire at the top. There was no surveillance tower and no uniformed, rifle-toting guards—or, at least, none she could see— casing the joint. It looked like a top-end hotel—a luxurious and very private resort for the rich and famous. Which kind of made her wonder why she’d been sent here. Not that she’d been expecting chains and bread and water or anything, but still. This was seriously over the top.

‘It’s only for a month,’ Natalia Varela, her caseworker, said as the decorative wrought-iron gates opened electronically, allowing them access to the long, sweeping limestone driveway leading to the immaculately maintained villa. ‘You got off lightly considering your rap sheet. I know a few people who’d happily swap places with you.’

Holly grunted. Folded her arms across her breasts. Crossed her right leg over her left. Jerked her ankle up and down. Pouted. Why should she look happy? Why should she act grateful that she was being sent to live with some man she’d never heard of in his big, old fancy villa?

A month.

Thirty-one days of living with some stranger who had magnanimously volunteered to ‘reform’ her. Ha-ha. Like that was going to work. Who was this guy anyway? All she’d been told was he was some hotshot techie nerd from England who had made the big time in Argentina designing software for space telescopes used in the Atacama Desert in neighbouring Chile. Oh, and he was apparently single. Holly rolled her eyes. He’d agreed to take on a troubled young woman for altruistic reasons? And the correctional authorities had actually fallen for that?

Yeah, right. She knew all about men and their dodgy motivations.

After being given the all clear from the security intercom device, Natalia drove through the gates before they whispered shut behind the car. ‘Julius Ravensdale is doing you a big favour,’ she said. ‘He’s only agreed to this—and very reluctantly at that—because his housekeeper has tendonitis in her wrist. You’ll be her right-hand helper. It’s an amazing opportunity. This place is like a five-star resort. It’ll be great vocational training for you. I hope you’ll make the most of it.’

Vocational training for what? Holly thought with a cynical curl of her lip. No one was going to make a housekeeper out of her just because she’d made a few mistakes, which weren’t even really mistakes, because her pond-scum stepfather had seriously had it coming to him. It was just a dumb old sports car, for pity’s sake. So what if he had to have it re-sprayed and his precious lawn re-sown after the weedkiller incident?

Holly was not going to be some rich man’s lowly slave scrubbing floors until her knees grew callouses as big as cabbages. Her days of being pushed around were long over. Julius Ravens-whatever-his-name-was would be in for a big shock if he thought he could exploit her to suit his nefarious needs.

What if it wasn’t the kitchen he planned to have her slaving in? What if he had more salacious plans? In her experience, men with money thought they could have anything and anyone they wanted. All that nonsense about him ‘reluctantly’ agreeing to take her on was just a ruse. Of course he would say that. He wouldn’t want to look too eager to take in a prison statistic waiting to happen. He would be ‘doing his bit for society’ by trying to do her.

Bring it on, she thought. Let’s see how far you get.

‘Oh, I’ll make the most of it, all right,’ Holly said as she sent the caseworker a guileless smile. ‘You can be sure of that.’

Natalia let out a world-weary sigh as she put her foot back on the accelerator. ‘Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of.’

* * *

The housekeeper whom she had met a few days before greeted Holly at the door of the villa while Natalia took an urgent call from one of her other charges.

‘It’s lovely to have you here, Holly,’ Sophia said. ‘Come in. Señor Ravensdale is busy just now so I’ll show you to your suite so you can settle in.’

Holly wasn’t expecting a welcoming committee with banners and balloons and a brass band or anything but surely the very least her host could do was make an appearance? If he’d agreed to have her here then he could at least do the polite thing and greet her face to face. ‘Where is he?’ she asked.

‘He’s not to be disturbed,’ Sofia said. ‘I’ll show you to the suite I’ve pre—’

‘Disturb him, please,’ Holly said. ‘Now.’

Sophia looked a little taken aback. ‘He doesn’t like to be interrupted while he’s working. He doesn’t allow anyone into his office unless it’s an emergency.’

Holly gently elbowed her way past to the door she took to be the study. It was the only door that was closed along the long, wide corridor. She didn’t knock. She turned the handle and barged in.

A man looked up from behind a desk where he was tapping at a computer keyboard. His fingers stalled as she came in, the last click echoing in the silence as his gaze met with hers.

Holly drew in a breath to speak but for some reason her voice wasn’t on active duty. It had locked behind her shock at how different he was from her expectations. He was nothing like she had envisaged. He wasn’t old or even middle-aged. He was in his early thirties and movie-star handsome, athletically lean and tanned. His hair was a rich dark brown with light waves running through it. It looked as if it had been recently styled with his fingers, for she could see the roughly spaced plough marks that gave him a sexily tousled look, as if he’d just tumbled out of bed after vigorous sex. He had a determined looking jaw, a straight nose and a firm but sensually sculptured mouth that for some reason made the ligaments at the backs of her knees weaken alarmingly.

He pushed back his chair, and the room instantly shrank as he stood. ‘Can I help you?’ he said with the sort of tone that suggested he was not in the least motivated to do so.

Holly had never been one to beat about the bush. Her tactic was to get in there with a verbal weed-whacker. ‘Don’t you know it’s impolite to ignore your guests when they arrive?’

His eyes held hers with steely focus. ‘Strictly speaking, you’re not my guest. You’re Sophia’s.’

Holly hitched up her chin, flashing him an I-know-what-you’re-up-to glare. ‘I want to let you know straight from the outset I’m not here to be your sex toy.’

His dark brows rose in twin arcs over his impossibly dark blue eyes. With his black hair and olive-skinned complexion, she had been expecting them to be brown. But they were an astonishing sapphire-blue fringed with thick black lashes. He seemed to measure her for a moment; his gaze taking in the tiny diamond nose piercing and the pink streaks in her hair with a tilt of his mouth that was unmistakably mocking.

A knot of bitterness inside Holly tightened. If there was one thing she loathed, it was being made fun of. Belittled. Mocked.

‘How do you do, Miss, er...?’ He glanced at his housekeeper, who had come in behind Holly, for a prompt.

‘Miss Perez,’ Sophia said. ‘Hollyanne.’

‘Holly,’ Holly said with a black look.

Julius offered his hand. ‘How do you do, Holly?’

She glared at his hand as if he’d just offered her a viper. ‘Keep your hands to yourself.’

Natalia entered his office sounding a little flustered. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Dr Ravensdale, but I had to take an urgent call about another client—’

Holly swung around and frowned at Natalia. ‘Doctor? You didn’t tell me he was a doctor. You said he was a computer geek.’

The caseworker gave Julius a pained smile before addressing Holly. ‘Dr Ravensdale has a PhD in astrophysics. It’s polite to call him by his correct title, if that’s what he prefers.’

Holly swung back to look at Julius. ‘What do you want me to call you? Sir? Master? Oh Mighty Learned One? Your Royal Tightness?’

His lips twitched as if he was fighting back a reluctant smile. ‘Julius will be fine.’

‘As in Caesar?’

‘As it turns out, yes.’

‘You’re into Shakespeare?’ Holly said it as if it was a noxious disease from which she had so far managed to escape contamination. No point letting him think she was anything but what he had already judged her as: uneducated and unsophisticated. Trailer trash.

‘No, but my parents are.’

‘Why’d you agree to have me here?’ she said, eye-balling him.

‘I didn’t want you here,’ he said. ‘But my current domestic circumstances made it impossible for me to refuse.’

Holly folded her arms across her chest. ‘I can’t cook,’ she said with an obdurate ‘so what are you going to do about that?’ look.

‘I’m sure you can learn.’

‘And I hate housework,’ she said. ‘It’s sexist expecting women to clean up after you. Just because I’ve got boobs and ovaries doesn’t mean I—’

‘Point taken,’ he said quickly. So quickly Holly wondered if he was worried she was going to list all of her feminine assets. ‘However, you need to do your stint of community service,’ he continued. ‘I need some help around the house until Sophia gets better. It’s win-win.’

Holly made a harrumphing noise and unwound her locked arms, turning her gaze to the caseworker. ‘Have you done a police check on him to make sure he’s the real deal?’

‘I can assure you, Holly, Dr Ravensdale is a totally trustworthy guardian,’ the caseworker said.

Holly pushed her bottom lip out like a drawer as she swung back to size Julius up. ‘Do you drink?’

‘Socially.’

‘Smoke?’

‘No.’

‘Drugs?’

‘No.’

Holly upped her brazenness another notch. ‘Sex?’

‘Holly...’ the caseworker began.

‘What?’ Holly asked with a petulant scowl.

‘You’re embarrassing Dr Ravensdale.’

‘I’m not embarrassed,’ Julius said. ‘But I’m also not going to answer such an impertinent question.’

Holly coughed out a laugh. ‘Which means you’re not getting any, right?’

He stared her down with a look that made her insides feel wobbly. He didn’t look the type of man to go too long between drinks. He looked the type of man who could take his pick of women. She could feel his sensual allure like a force field. Her mind ran wild with images of him getting down to business. He wouldn’t be one for a quick, sleazy grope. He would take his time. He would know his way around a woman’s body. He would know how to send female senses spinning into the stratosphere. She could see it in the darkly confident glint of his gaze. ‘While we’re on the topic,’ he said, ‘I would appreciate it if you would abstain from bringing men here for the purpose of having intimate relations with them.’

‘So...you get to have sex but I don’t? That is...’ Holly dropped her voice to a deliberately husky purr ‘...unless we have it with each other?’

‘I have to get going,’ the caseworker said as her phone buzzed with an incoming message. ‘Holly, I hope you’ll behave yourself while you’re here. This is your last chance, don’t forget. If this fails you know where you’ll be going.’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ Holly said with a bored flicker of her eyelids as she turned to look at the view from one of the windows next to a wall of bookshelves. She didn’t want to go to prison but neither did she want to be exploited by yet another man who assumed he had some sort of power over her. If Julius Ravensdale wanted a plaything, why hadn’t he cut one from the herd? The herd he belonged to—the ‘beautiful people’ herd. She wasn’t even his type. How could she be, with her cheap chain-store clothes? Not to mention her background. The background she was still trying to escape. It clung to her like thick axle grease. No amount of washing and cleansing and sanitising would remove it.

Julius Ravensdale came from money. She could see it in the way he dressed, in the way he held himself with supreme confidence, with cool and collected authority. She could see it in the furnishings he surrounded himself with: the priceless paintings, the books and the hand-woven floor coverings. He hadn’t lived his childhood in sweat-soaked fear. He hadn’t had to fight for survival. He’d had everything handed to him on a gilt-edged platter. Why was he agreeing to have her here if not to make use of her? She clenched her back teeth in determination. He would not use her.

She would use him first.

* * *

‘I’ll call each day to see how she’s getting on,’ the caseworker said to Julius as she shook his hand. ‘It’s very good of you to commit to this programme. It’s helped many people turn their lives around.’

‘I’m sure everything will be fine,’ Julius assured her. ‘Sophia will do most of the mentoring.’

‘All the same, it’s very kind of you to open your home like this.’

‘It’s a big house,’ he said. Maybe not big enough.

Julius turned once Sophia had escorted the caseworker out of his office to find Holly looking at him with a flinty gaze. ‘How much are they paying you to have me?’ she said.

‘I’ve told them to donate the fee to charity.’

‘Big of you.’

He leaned against the windowsill behind his desk with his hands balanced either side of his hips to study her. It was a casual pose that belied the havoc her presence caused to his senses. He could feel the blood humming through his veins in a way it hadn’t since he’d been a teenager. He looked down at her upturned, defiant face with its flashing caramel-brown gaze and sulky cherry-red mouth. A tiny diamond winked from the side of her right nostril. The bridge of her retroussé nose was dusted with freckles that reminded him of nutmeg sprinkled on top of a dessert. But that was about as far as he could go with the sweetness description. She looked sour and bitter and ready for a fight.

Something about her blatant rudeness made everything that was cultured in Julius stiffen. Not, perhaps, the best choice of word, he thought wryly as he scanned her impudent features. But her rudeness wasn’t the only thing that was blatant about her. She had an earthy, raw sensuality about her. The way she moved her body. The way she inhabited her body. His body recognised it like a stallion scenting a potential mate.

He forced his mind out of the gutter. Clearly he needed to get some work-life balance if this little upstart was attracting his attention.

Her face was not what one would call classically beautiful but there was an arresting quality to it that made him want to study her for longer than was socially polite. He noted the high and haughty cheekbones you could slice a Christmas ham on. Eyelashes that were thick and long without the boost of mascara. Her skin—apart from the freckles and the diamond piercing—was creamy and make-up-free. Her hair was a mass of springy shoulder-length curls and was a mid shade of brown, apart from some rather vivid streaks of pink.

Julius was still waiting for her to make the connection between him and his parents. It didn’t usually take this long. He had got used to it over the years. Well, almost: the wide-eyed wonder. The delighted shock that produced a sickening number of gushing comments: Oh, you’re the son of the famous London West End actors Richard Ravensdale and Elisabetta Albertini! Can you get me their autographs? An invitation to opening night? Front-row seats? A back-stage pass? An audition?

But Miss Holly Perez had either never heard of his parents or was not impressed by his lineage.

Julius had to admit he found her forthrightness strangely appealing. It was such a refreshing change. He’d had his share of sycophants. People who only wanted to be associated with him because of his connection with London theatre royalty. Women who wanted to be squired by him on the red carpet in the hope of catching the eye of a casting agent. It was refreshing to be in the presence of someone who didn’t give a toss for the shallowness of his parents’ celebrity.

Julius didn’t care too much for the word ‘guardian’ the caseworker had used in reference to him. It made him sound decades older than his thirty-three years. Holly was younger than him certainly but only by about seven or eight years at the most. Twenty-five, but hardened by her experiences. He could see it in her eyes. There was no sheen of innocence in that thickly fringed brown gaze. It was full of cold, hard cynicism. A mess-with-me-at-your-peril gleam. What had led her to a life of petty crime? He’d seen the list of her offences: theft; wilful damage to property; graffiti; vandalism.

Sophia’s rescue mission was perhaps going to be a little more challenging than he’d bargained for. He’d agreed to it because he trusted his housekeeper’s judgement. But Sophia’s judgement was clearly not what it used to be. Holly had come striding in like a denim-and-cheap-cotton-clad whirlwind—asking him about his sex life, for God’s sake.

He knew he was acting and sounding like a stern schoolmaster. But he figured it was best to get the ground rules in early. He wasn’t going to stand by while Holly conducted drunken parties or all-night orgies under his roof.

Julius didn’t care how many impertinent questions she asked, he wasn’t going to admit to his current sex drought. He’d been busy. He was working on some new top-secret software. He wasn’t like his twin brother, Jake, who had sex as if he were training for the Olympics. Nor was he like his father, who had a reputation as a womaniser that was regrettably well deserved.

Julius enjoyed the company of women. He dated from time to time. He enjoyed the physicality of sex but he didn’t care for the politics of it. The agenda women brought to the bedroom irked him. If he wanted to marry and settle down, then he would make the decision when he was good and ready. Although he seriously wondered if he would ever be ready. Having witnessed his parents’ turbulent marriage, acrimonious divorce, remarriage and ongoing drama-filled relationship, he wasn’t sure he wanted to sign up for the potential for so much disruption and chaos.

‘I know why you’ve agreed to have me here, so don’t bother pretending otherwise.’ Holly’s look had a bad-girl gleam to it that messed with his hormones. He felt a stirring in his groin. A lightning flash of unbidden lust that made his blood throb and pound in his veins. He was surprised—and deeply annoyed—by his reaction to her. She was obviously well aware of her effect on the male gaze, exploiting it for all it was worth. Her unusual beauty, even though it was currently downplayed, was the sort that could stop a bullet train in its tracks. She had a sensual air about her. A way of moving her body that made him ache to see what she looked like naked. He kept his expression masked but he wondered if she sensed the impact she had on him.

How had he got himself into this? Julius thought. He should have called an agency. Employed someone who had credentials. Someone who had training. Manners. Decorum. Why had he allowed Sophia to talk him into taking on someone as cheeky and wilful as Holly Perez? She was going to be living under his roof. For a month!

‘You are mistaken, Miss Perez,’ he said coolly. ‘My taste in women is far more sophisticated.’

She adopted a femme fatale pose, all slinky hips and shoulders, her mouth in a come-and-get-me moue. ‘Of course it is,’ she said with a devilish little twinkle that matched the diamond in her nose.

Julius felt the swell of his flesh at her brazen sexuality. The pounding and purring of his blood drove every rational thought out of his brain. Sex was suddenly all he could think about. Hot, sweaty, bed-wrecking sex. Mind-blowing caveman sex. Driving himself into her tight, wet warmth and exploding like a bomb. How long had it been? Clearly too long if he was getting jumpy at this outrageous little flirt. Holly Perez was a troublemaker. It might as well be branded across her forehead. He wasn’t going to fall for it. He was not at the mercy of his hormones...or at least he hadn’t been before now.

Holly moved around his office with cat-like grace. Slinky, silent, sensuous. Dangerous, if stroked the wrong way. Although when he checked he noticed she didn’t have claws. Her fingernails were bitten down to the quick. When she lifted her hand to push her hair back off her face he noticed a long white scar on the fine blue-veined skin of her wrist. ‘How did you get that scar?’ he asked.

A mask came down over her features as she pushed down her sleeve. ‘I broke my arm when I was a kid. I had to have it pinned and plated.’

Julius let a silence slip past. He watched as she fiddled with the hem of her sleeve, her fingertips tugging and twisting the light cotton fabric as if it irritated her skin. Her eyebrows were drawn together, her forehead pleated, her expression broody. It intrigued him how quickly she had switched from impudent vamp to bad-tempered brat.

‘Would you like to look around the villa?’

She gave an indifferent shrug. ‘Whatever.’

Julius had intended to get Sophia to give Holly a guided tour but he decided he would do it. He told himself it was so he could check she didn’t pilfer any of his belongings or carve her initials or a curse word into one of his antiques. Why on earth had he agreed to this? God knew what she would get up to once out of his sight.

He led the way out of his office. ‘I detect a trace of an English accent,’ he said as they walked along the hall. ‘Are you originally from the UK?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We moved out here when I was young. My father was Argentinian.’

‘Was?’

‘He died when I was three. I don’t remember him, so there’s no need to get all soppy and sentimental and feel sorry for me.’

Julius glanced down at her walking beside him. She barely came up to his shoulder. ‘Is your mother still alive?’

‘No.’

‘What happened?’

‘She died.’

‘How?’

Holly threw him a hardened look. ‘Didn’t Natalia show you my file?’

Julius was a little ashamed he hadn’t read it in more detail. But then he hadn’t planned on having anything to do with her. Apart from Sophia, he didn’t have much to do with his staff on a personal level. They did their job. He did his. He’d focussed on Holly’s rap sheet without looking at the story behind the miscreant behaviour. Some people were born bad, others had bad things happen to them and they turned bad as a result. Where did Holly fit on the spectrum? ‘I’d like you to tell me.’

‘She killed herself when I was seventeen.’

‘I’m sorry.’

She gave another careless shrug. ‘So what about your parents?’

‘They’re both alive and well.’ And driving him nuts as usual.

Holly stopped in front of a painting. It was a landscape he’d bought at an auction his sister, Miranda, had given him the heads-up on. Miranda was an art restorer, yet another Ravensdale sibling who had disappointed their parents by not treading the boards.

Holly resumed walking, idly picking up objects he had on display, turning them over in her hands and putting them down again. Julius hoped she wasn’t sizing them up for later theft.

‘You got any brothers or sisters?’ she asked after a long silence.

Julius was finding it a novel experience, meeting someone who knew nothing about his family. Didn’t the girl have a smartphone? Internet access? Read newspapers or gossip magazines? ‘I have a twin brother and a sister ten years younger.’

She stopped walking to look up at him. ‘Are you identical?’

‘Yes.’

Her eyes suddenly danced with impish mischief, dimples appearing either side of her mouth, completely transforming her features. ‘Ever swapped places with him?’

He put on what his kid sister called his ‘I’m too old for all that nonsense’ face. ‘Not for a very long time.’

‘Can your parents tell you apart?’

‘They can now but not when we were younger,’ he said. Mostly because they hadn’t been around enough. Their fame was far more important to them than their family. Not that he was bitter. Much. ‘What about you? Do you have any siblings?’

‘No.’ Her dimpled smile faded and the frown reinstated itself on her forehead as she resumed walking along the corridor. ‘There’s just me...’

Julius heard something in her tone that suggested a resigned sense of profound aloneness. He hadn’t expected to feel sorry for her. He had strong values on what constituted good and bad behaviour. The law was the law. Breaking it just because you’d had a difficult childhood wasn’t a good enough excuse, in his opinion. But something about her intrigued him. She was light and dark. Moon shadows and bright sunlight. She reminded him of a complicated puzzle that would need more than one attempt to solve it.

Maybe his housekeeper’s mission would prove far more interesting than he’d first thought.

Holly stopped in front of the windows overlooking the formal gardens. ‘Do you live here alone?’ she asked.

‘Apart from my staff, yes, but they have separate quarters. Sophia is the exception. She has a suite on the top floor.’

Holly turned and looked at him with a direct gaze. ‘Seems a pretty big place for a single guy.’

‘I like my own space.’

‘Must cost a ton to keep this place ticking over.’

‘I manage.’

‘Yeah, well, money and possessions don’t impress me,’ she said, turning to look at the gardens again.

‘What does?’

She swivelled to face him and tilted one of her hips, lowering one shoulder lower than the other so her thin chain-store sweater slipped to reveal the creamy cap of her shoulder. She looked at him through eyes half-shielded by the thick dark fans of her lashes. ‘Let’s see...’ She pursed her full lips in thought before releasing them on a breath of air. ‘I’m impressed by a man who knows his way around a woman’s body.’

Julius was doing his darnedest not even to think about her luscious little body. Or that full-lipped mouth and the mayhem it could cause if it came too close to his. He had a feeling she was testing him. Testing his motives. Seeing if he was going to exploit her. Had she been exploited before? Was that how she viewed all men? As manipulators and bullies who forced their will on her?

He might be a man who liked his own way but there was no way he would ever describe himself as a bully. He could be arrogant at times—stubborn, even—but he was a firm believer in treating women with respect. Having a shy and reserved much younger sister had instilled in him the importance of men taking a stand against all forms of violence against women and girls.

‘That’s it?’ he said. ‘Just whether he can perform?’

‘Sure,’ she said, eyes gleaming with pertness. ‘How a man has sex tells you a lot about them as a person. Whether they’re selfish or not. Whether they’re uptight or casual.’ She tapped two of her fingertips against her mouth in a musing manner. ‘Let’s take you, for instance.’

Let’s not, he thought. ‘This theory of yours is imminently fascinating but I think—’

‘You’re a man who likes to be in control,’ she said. ‘You like order and predictability. You don’t do things on impulse. Your life is planned, timetabled, scheduled to the nth degree. Am I right?’

Julius didn’t feel too comfortable at being so rapidly written off as a boring stereotype, as nothing more than a cliché. He liked to think he wasn’t that predictable. He had nuances; sure he did. Layers to his personality that were there if you took the time to find them. He might spend a lot of time in the land of logic and reason but it didn’t mean he couldn’t use the right side of his brain. Well...occasionally.

He stepped towards the nearest door. ‘This is the library,’ he said. ‘You’re welcome to help yourself to books as long as you don’t dog-ear them or leave them outside.’

‘See?’ She gave a bell-like laugh. ‘I was spot-on.’

He gave her a look before he moved to the next door farther down the corridor. ‘This is the music room.’

‘Let me guess,’ she said with another one of her impish smiles. ‘You don’t mind if I play the piano as long as my fingers aren’t sticky or I don’t drop crumbs between the keys. Correct?’

Julius found the picture she was painting of him increasingly annoying. What gave her the right to sum him up in such disparaging terms? She made him sound like some sort of house-proud obsessive. ‘Do you play an instrument?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘Would you like to learn?’ Music was supposed to tame wild things, wasn’t it? He could engage a tutor for her. What was that saying about the devil and idle hands? Piano lessons would at least keep her out of his way.

‘What?’ she said, the cynical glint back in her gaze. ‘You think you can teach me the piano in a month?’

‘I have other instruments.’

‘I just bet you do.’

He gave her a droll look. ‘Flute. Tenor recorder. Saxophone.’

She looked at him, one side of her plump mouth curved in a mocking arc. ‘Impressive. Gotta love a man who’s good with his mouth and his hands.’

Julius put his hands deep in his trouser pockets in case he was tempted to show her just how good he was. Why was she being so damn brazen? Winding him up for what reason? To prove he was as predictable as all the other men she’d dealt with? What did she hope to gain? Would he be just another male trophy for her to gloat over? Another man she had slayed with her sensual allure? He wasn’t going to fall for it. He had no time for vacuous game playing. She might think him predictable and a walking, talking cliché but he was not when it came to this. She could flirt and tease and taunt him as much as she wanted but he wasn’t going to fall into her honey trap. He might be his father’s son by blood, name and looks but he wasn’t like him by nature.

‘I’ll leave Sophia to show you around the rest of the house,’ he said, his tone formal, clipped. Dismissive.

Her mischievous gaze danced. ‘Aren’t you going to show me where I’ll be sleeping?’

‘I’m not sure where Sophia has put you.’

But I hope to God it’s nowhere near me, Julius thought as he turned and strode briskly away.

CHAPTER TWO

HOLLY WATCHED AS Julius Ravensdale made his way down the lengthy and wide corridor with long, purposeful strides. She felt strangely breathless after their encounter. Her pulse was thrumming too hard and too fast. It felt as if something small and scared was scrabbling inside the valves of her heart.

Her reaction to him confounded her. Confused her.

Men didn’t usually have that effect on her. Even good-looking ones. And they didn’t come much better looking than Julius Ravensdale. She’d been expecting some long-haired, bushy-bearded, shoulder-hunched computer geek and instead had found a man who looked as if he could fill in for a European male model in an aftershave or designer watch advertisement. His tall, broad-shouldered athletic build gave him an air of authority that was compelling. There was something about his looks that rang a faint bell of recognition in her head. Had she seen a picture of him somewhere? Or was his twin famous? Even his name struck a chord of familiarity but she couldn’t remember where she’d heard it before.

His thick, wavy dark brown hair was tousled in a mad professor sort of way she found intensely attractive. He was clean-shaven but with just enough regrowth to confirm he hadn’t been holding the door for everyone else while the testosterone was being handed out. She had felt the impact of his male hormones as soon as she’d entered his office. It was like a collision against her flesh. Potent. Powerful. Primal. Making her aware of her body in a way she hadn’t been in years. Maybe had never been.

He triggered something in her, something deeply instinctive. Something rebellious. She felt an irresistible desire to dismantle his façade of cool civility. To unpick the lock on the brooding passion she could sense was under lockdown. She wanted to tease out the primitive man behind the aristocratic manners. He was so rigidly controlled with an aloof and haughty air. There was an invisible wall around him warning her not to come close. But what if she did? What if she dared to come so close he wouldn’t be able to keep that iron control in place? She gave a secret smile. Tempting thought.

Holly couldn’t get over his incredible eyes. Dark as navy fringed with thick lashes and strong eyebrows. Intelligent eyes. Observant. Intuitive. He had a straight nose and a jaw that hinted at a streak of stubbornness. He looked like he lived in his head a lot. Thoughts and logic were his currency. Action would come later after due consideration.

If nothing else it would make a change from the men she’d been forced to share quarters with—her low-life stepfather being a perfect case in point.

Maybe this month wouldn’t be such a hardship after all. It was exhilarating, winding Julius up. It amused her to see him act all schoolmasterish and stern in the face of her brazen behaviour. She was picky when it came to whom she shared her body with but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have a bit of fun rattling his chain. He was starchy and formal in that ‘stiff upper lip’ way the well-born English male was known for. Maybe it would fill in the time to try and loosen him up a bit. Show him a top-notch university degree didn’t make him any different from any other man she’d met. Men driven by hormones. Greedy to have their lust slaked with whomever was available. She’d prove to him he had no right to look down his nose at her.

Holly gave a little smile. Yep, this period of house arrest could prove to be the best fun she’d had in years.

The housekeeper appeared at the end of the corridor and came towards Holly with her wrist supported in a brace. It brought back memories of the time her stepfather had snapped her wrist when she’d been eleven and then told her he would kill her or her mother if she told anyone how she’d got injured. She’d had to pretend she’d fallen off her bike. A bike she hadn’t even possessed. The plates and screws in her wrist weren’t the only scars her stepfather had left her with.

Her issues with authority, her rebellious streak, her distrust of men and her cold sweat nightmares were the hoofmarks of a childhood and adolescence spent at the mercy of a madman. She wouldn’t have had to be here doing this ridiculous programme if it hadn’t been for the way her stepfather and his bullying lawyer had made it seem as if she was the criminal.

‘Come this way, Holly,’ Sophia said as she led the way to the next floor. ‘So, what do you think of the place so far?’

‘It’s okay, I guess.’ Holly didn’t see the point in getting too friendly with the natives. Sophia seemed nice enough but it would be a waste of energy striking up a friendship when in a matter of weeks—if not before—she’d be gone.

‘I had to twist Señor Ravensdale’s arm to agree to having you here,’ Sophia said as they came to the first-floor landing. ‘It’s not that he doesn’t want to do his bit for charity. He’s incredibly generous and supports lots of causes. He just likes to be left alone to get on with his work.’

‘Has he got any lady friends?’ Holly asked.

Sophia’s expression closed down. ‘Señor Ravensdale’s privacy is of paramount importance to him.’

‘Come on, there must be someone in his life,’ Holly said.

Sophia’s mouth tightened as if she were physically restraining herself from being indiscreet about her employer. ‘I value my job too much to reveal such personal information.’

Holly gave a lip shrug. ‘He sounds pretty boring, if you ask me. All work and no play.’

‘He’s a wonderful employer,’ Sophia said. ‘And a decent man with honour and sound principles. You’re very lucky I was able to talk him into having you stay here. It’s not something he would normally do.’

‘Lucky me.’

Sophia gave her a warning look. ‘I hope you’re not going to cause trouble for him.’

Who, me? Holly thought with another private smile. Julius Ravensdale’s loyal housekeeper thought he had sound principles, did she? How long before his honourable motives were exposed for what they were? She’d seen the way he’d run his gaze over her. He might be clever and sophisticated but he had the same needs as any man his age. He was healthy and fit and in the prime of his life. Why wouldn’t he take advantage of the situation? She wasn’t vain but she knew the power she had at her disposal. It was the only power she had. She didn’t have money or prestige or a pedigree. She had her body and she knew how to use it.

‘How’d you injure your wrist?’ Holly asked to fill the silence.

‘It’s just a bit of tendonitis,’ Sophia said. ‘I get it now and again. It will settle if I rest up. All part of getting old, I’m afraid.’

Holly followed the housekeeper to the third floor of the villa. The Persian carpet was as thick as velvet, the luxurious décor showing French and Italian influences. Gorgeous artworks decorated the walls, portraits and landscapes of various sizes, and marble busts and statues were positioned along the gallery-wide corridor. Chandeliers hung like crystal fountains above and the wall lights sparkled with the same top-quality glitter.

Holly had never been in such an opulent place. It was like a palace. A showcase of every fine thing a sophisticated and wealthy person could acquire. But there were no personal items scattered about. No family photographs or memorabilia. Not a thing out of place and everything in its place. It looked more like a museum than a home.

‘This is your room,’ Sophia said, opening a door to a suite a third of the way along the corridor. ‘It has its own bathroom and balcony.’

Balcony?

Holly stopped dead. Her heart tripped. Fear sent a shiver through the hairs of her scalp. The silk curtains at the French doors leading onto the balcony billowed with the afternoon breeze like the ball gown of a ghost.

How many times had she been dragged to the rickety balcony of her childhood? Locked out there in all types of weather. Forced to watch helplessly as her mother had been knocked around on the other side of the glass. Holly had learned not to react because when she had it had made her mother suffer all the more. Holly’s distress revved up her stepfather so she taught herself not to show it.

But she felt it.

Oh, dear God, she felt it now.

Her chest was tight, heavy. Every breath she took felt like she was trying to lift a bookcase. She couldn’t speak. Her throat was closed with a stranglehold of panic.

‘It’s breath-taking, isn’t it?’ Sophia said. ‘It’s only been recently renovated. You can probably still smell the fresh paint.’

A shudder passed through Holly’s body like an earthquake. Her legs went cold and then weak as if the ligaments had been severed with the swing of a sword. Beads of perspiration trickled down between her shoulder blades, as warm and as sticky as blood. Her stomach was a crowded fishbowl of nausea. Churning. Rising in a bloated tide to her blocked throat.

‘I—I don’t need such a big room,’ she said. ‘Just put me in one of the downstairs rooms. We passed a nice one on the second floor. That blue one back there. That’ll do me. I don’t need my own balcony.’

‘But there are nice views all over the estate and you’ll have much more privacy. It’s one of the nicest rooms in the—’

‘I don’t care about the view,’ Holly said, stepping back from the door to stand near a marble statue that felt as cold as her body. ‘It’s not as if I’m an honoured guest, is it? I’m here under sufferance. Your employer’s and mine. I just need a bed and a blanket.’ Which was far more than she’d had in the not-so-distant past.

‘But Señor Ravensdale insisted you—’

‘Yeah, yeah, I know—be put as far away from his room as possible,’ Holly said, hugging her arms across her body. ‘Why? Doesn’t he trust himself?’

The housekeeper’s mouth pulled tight like the strings of an old-fashioned evening purse. ‘Señor Ravensdale is a gentleman.’

‘Yeah, well, even gentlemen have hormones.’

Sophia let out a frustrated breath. ‘Will you at least look at the suite? You might change your mind once you see how—’

‘No.’ Holly swung away and went back down the stairs, one flight after another, her feet barely landing long enough on each step before it clipped the next one. She didn’t draw breath until she got to the nearest exit. She stopped once out in the sunshine, bending forward, hands on her knees, her lungs all but exploding as she gasped in the warm summer air.

There was no way she was going to sleep in a room with a balcony.

No way.

* * *

Julius was standing at his office window when he saw Holly striding off towards the lake past the formal part of the gardens. Was she running away already? Absconding as soon as she saw an opportunity? He was supposed to call her caseworker if there was an issue. He glanced at his phone and then back at Holly’s slight figure as she stopped in front of the lake. If she’d wanted to escape she surely would have gone in the other direction. The wide, deep lake and the thick forest fringing it behind were as good a barrier as any. He watched as she bent down and picked up a pebble and skimmed it across the surface of the water. It skipped several times before sinking, leaving a ring of concentric circles in its wake. There was something poignant and sad about her slim figure standing there alone.

There was a tap on his door. ‘Señor? Can I have a word?’

Julius opened the door to Sophia. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘Holly won’t have the room I prepared for her,’ Sophia said.

He tilted his mouth in a sardonic arc. ‘Not good enough for her?’

‘Too big for her.’

He frowned. ‘Is that what she said?’

Sophia nodded. ‘I made it all nice for her and she won’t have it. She stalked off as if I’d told her she’d be sleeping in the stables.’

‘Whose idea was it to bring her here again?’ he said with mock rancour.

‘I’m sure she’ll grow on you,’ Sophia said. ‘She’s a spirited little thing, isn’t she?’

‘Indeed.’

‘Will you talk to her?’

‘I just spent the last half hour with her.’

‘Please?’ Sophia, for all that she was close to retirement, had a tendency to look like a pleading three-year-old child when she wanted him to do things her way.

‘What do you want me to say to her?’

‘Insist she take the room I prepared for her,’ Sophia said. ‘Otherwise where will I put her? You told me you didn’t want her on your floor.’

‘All right.’ Julius let out a long breath of resignation. ‘I’ll talk to her. But you’d better get the first aid kit out.’

‘Come, now. You wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

He gave her a wry look as he shouldered open the door. ‘No, but our little guest looks as if she could stick a knife in you and laugh while she’s doing it.’

* * *

Julius found her still skimming rocks across the surface of the lake. She was damn good at it, too. The most he could get was thirteen skips. Her last one had been fourteen. She must have heard him approach as his feet made plenty of noise on the pebbles at the edge of the lake but she didn’t turn around. She kept skimming pebble after pebble with a focussed, almost fierce concentration.

‘I believe you have an issue with the accommodation I’ve provided,’ he said.

She threw another pebble but not as a skimmer. It went sailing overhead and landed with a loud plop in the centre of the lake. ‘I don’t need a suite in first class. I belong in steerage,’ she said.

‘Surely that’s up to me to decide?’

She turned and faced him. It unnerved him a little to see she had a stone rather than a pebble clutched in her fist. Her eyes flashed at him. ‘What are you trying to do? Conduct your own Pygmalion experiment? Well, guess what, Mr Higgins? I’m no fair lady.’

‘No; you’re a bad tempered little miss who seems intent on biting the hand that’s generously offered to feed you.’

She glowered at him with her chest rising and falling as if she was only just managing to control her fury. ‘You didn’t offer me anything,’ she shot back. ‘You don’t want me here any more than I want to be here.’

‘True, but you’re here now and it seems mature and sensible to make the best of the situation.’

Holly turned and flung the stone at the lake but it hit a tree on the left-hand side with a loud thwack. ‘How are you going to explain me to your fancy friends or family?’ she said.

‘I don’t feel the necessity to explain myself to anyone.’

‘Lucky you.’

Where was the cheeky little flirt now? he wondered. In her place was a woman brooding with anger. Anger so thick he could feel it in the air like the humidity before a violent storm.

Julius picked up a pebble and sent it skimming across the surface of the lake. ‘That’s a personal best,’ he said as he counted fifteen skips. ‘Think you can match it?’

She turned and looked at him with a watchful gaze. ‘What about your girlfriend? What’s she going to say when she hears you’ve got me living with you?’

He bent down and picked up another pebble, rolling it over to check its suitability. ‘I don’t have a current girlfriend.’

‘When was your last one?’

He glanced at her before he skimmed the pebble. ‘You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?’

‘I know you’re not gay because no gay man would look at me the way you did back in your office,’ she said. ‘You fancy me, don’t you?’

Julius tightened his mouth as he reached down for another pebble. ‘Your ego is as appalling as your manners.’

She gave a cynical laugh as she threw another pebble, even farther this time, as if all her pent up energy went into the throw. ‘I suppose no one without a university degree with honours need apply. So what do you talk about in bed? Quantum physics? Einstein’s theory of relativity?’

He looked down at her upturned face with its mocking smile and impossibly cute dimples. What was it about her that made him feel this was all a front? He was all too familiar with theatrical talent. His parents were some of the best in the theatre. Even he had to acknowledge that. But this defiant tearaway was putting on an award-winning performance. ‘Why don’t you want the room Sophia prepared for you?’ he asked.

Her eyes lost their cheeky sparkle and her expression became sulky again. ‘I don’t want to be shoved at the top of your grand old house like some freak you want to hide in case she does the wrong thing in front of your fancy guests. I suppose you’ll insist on me taking my meals in there or with the servants in the kitchen.’

‘I don’t have servants,’ Julius said. ‘I have staff. And, yes, they make their own arrangements over dining but that’s more out of convenience than convention.’ He paused for a beat before adding. ‘I expect you to dine with me each evening.’ Are you out of your mind? The less time you spend with her the better.

‘Why?’ she said with a surly look. ‘So you can criticise me when I use the wrong fork or knife?’

‘Why do you think everyone you meet is automatically against you?’

She turned and looked at the lake rather than meet his gaze. He could see the flicker of a tiny muscle in her cheek as if she was grinding down on her molars. It was a while before she spoke and when she did it was with a voice that was pitched slightly lower than normal with a distinctly husky edge. ‘I don’t want that room.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s...too posh.’

‘Fine,’ Julius said, mentally rolling his eyes. ‘You can choose your own room. God knows there are plenty to choose from.’

‘Thank you.’ It was not much more than a whisper of sound and she still wasn’t looking at him but there was something in her posture that suggested enormous relief. Her shoulders had lost their tense, bunched-up-to-her-ears look. Her spine was no longer ramrod straight. Her hands were not curled into tight fists or clutching pebbles but hanging loosely by her sides.

He had a strong urge to reach out, take one of her hands and give it a reassuring squeeze but somehow refrained from doing so. Just. ‘Do you want to walk back with me or hang around down here for a little bit?’ he said.

She turned her head to look at him. ‘Aren’t you worried I might run away when your back is turned?’

He studied her for a moment, taking in her shuttered gaze and the pouty set to her mouth. ‘You’d be running towards prison if you do. Hardly something to look forward to, is it?’

She bit down on her lower lip and turned to look at a water bird that had flown in to land in the centre of the lake, its paddling feet sending out concentric circles of disturbance. He watched as a slight breeze played with some loose tendrils of her hair and she absently brushed them back with one of her hands. His chest gave a sharp little squeeze when he saw her hand was shaking. There was no sign of the tough, angry girl. No sign of the brash guttersnipe. Right then she looked like your average girl next door who had suddenly found herself at an anxiety-inducing crossroads.

Julius bent down, picked up a pebble and handed it to her. ‘My brother Jake holds the record down here. Seventeen skips.’

She took the pebble from him but as her fingers touched his he felt an electric shock run up along his arm. She slowly raised her gaze to mesh with his. A pulsing moment passed when he lost all sense of time and place. It could have been seconds or minutes or even days.

His eyes kept tracking to her mouth, the shape of it, the fullness of it that suggested passion and heat, and yet a strange sense of untouched innocence. He felt like a magnet was pulling his head down towards it. He had to fight every muscle and sinew and throbbing cell in his body to counter its force.

He watched as the tip of her tongue slipped out between her lips and moistened the top lip, then the bottom one, leaving each one glistening with a tempting sheen. Blood rushed to his groin, thickening him with a rocket blast of lust.

He had a sudden feeling he had been asleep all of his life until this moment. It was like coming out of cold storage. A slow melt was moving through his body; he could feel it all the way to his fingertips, the urge, the compulsion to touch, to feel her soft skin, sliding, stroking, moving against his own.

His mind was not following its usual logical pathways. It was short-circuiting with erotic images, hot fantasies of him burying himself inside her body, bringing them both to completion in a matter of seconds.

Could she sense the turmoil in him? Had she any idea of the effect she was having on him? He tried to read her expression but her eyelids were lowered over her eyes as she focussed on his mouth.

He lifted his hand to her cheek, barely aware he was doing it until he felt the creamy softness of her skin against his palm, tilting her face so she had to meet his gaze. Those bewitching eyes made his pulse pound all the harder. Every beat of his heart felt like a hammer blow, each one sending a deep, resounding echo to his pelvis. Her skin felt like silk against his palm and fingers. Warm. Smooth. Sensuous. Her eyes contained a glint of anticipation, of expectation. Of triumph.

He moved the pad of his thumb over the small, neat circle of her chin, watching as her pupils flared like pools of ink. Her lips were slightly apart, just enough for him to feel the soft waft of her vanilla-scented breath. How easy would it be to close the distance and touch his lips to hers? The urge to do so was strong, perhaps stronger than at any other time in his life, but he knew if he did it he would be crossing a line. Breaking a boundary. Inviting trouble.

‘I’m not going to do it,’ he said, dropping his hand from her face.

Her look was all innocence. ‘What?’

‘You know what.’

She met his eyes with a hard gleam in her own. ‘I could make you disregard those principles you’re clinging to. I could do it in a heartbeat.’

Julius frowned until his eyebrows met. ‘Why are you trying to ruin your one chance of getting your life in order?’

She glared at him. ‘I don’t need you to get my life in order. I don’t need anyone.’

‘How’s that been working out for you so far?’

Her eyes were twin flashpoints of heat. ‘You know what I hate about men like you? You think just because you have it all, you can have it all.’

‘Look,’ Julius said. ‘I get this is a tough gig for you. You don’t want to be here. But what’s your alternative?’

She pressed her lips together and looked at him mulishly. ‘I’m not the one who should be threatened with going to prison.’

‘Yes, well, apparently most prisons are full of innocent people,’ he said. ‘But according to our current laws you can’t steal or damage property or whatever else you did and not be punished for it.’

She swung away. ‘I don’t have to listen to this.’

‘Holly.’ Julius caught her by the arm and turned her to face him. ‘I want to help you. Can’t you see that?’

She gave him a disdainful look as she tested his hold. ‘How? By making me get used to all this luxury, only to be tossed back out on the streets as soon as the month is up?’

Julius’s frown deepened. ‘Don’t you have a home to go to?’

Her eyes skittered away from his. ‘Let go of my arm.’

He loosened his hold but kept her tethered to him with the bracelet of his fingers. ‘No one is going to toss you anywhere,’ he said. What are you going to do with her once the month is up? The thoughts were like pop-up signs in his head. If she didn’t have a home to go to, then where would she go? Where did his responsibility towards her begin and end?

Did he have a responsibility towards her?

‘Is that where you’ve been living?’ he asked. ‘Out on the streets?’

She slipped her wrist out of his hold and folded her arms across her body, shooting him a fiery glare. ‘What would you care? People like you don’t even notice people like me.’

Julius noticed her all right. A little too much. His hand was tingling where he’d been holding her wrist. It was as if his blood was bubbling through his veins like boiling soda. He noticed the way her brown eyes sparked with venom one minute, glittering with an erotic come-on the next. He noticed the way she moved her body like a sleek pedigree cat, only to turn around, spit and hiss at him like a cornered feral one.

He had no idea how to handle her. He wasn’t supposed to be the one handling her. This was his housekeeper’s mission, not his. He was supposed to be getting on with his work while Sophia did her bit for society by taking in a stray and reforming her.

But Holly Perez was no ordinary stray.

She was a feisty little firebrand who seemed determined to cause trouble with everyone who dared to come too close.

‘While you’re under my roof I’m responsible for you,’ Julius said. ‘But that means you have responsibilities, too.’

Her chin came up. ‘Like what? Servicing you in the bedroom?’

He set his mouth. ‘No. Definitely not.’

Her look said it all. Cynicism on steroids. ‘Sure and I believe you.’

‘I mean it, Holly,’ Julius said. ‘I’m not in the habit of bedding young women who have no manners, no respect and no sense of propriety.’

She gave a musical sounding laugh. ‘I am so going to make you eat your words.’

He stoically ignored the throb of lust that charged through his pelvis. ‘I’ll see you at dinner,’ he said. ‘I expect you to dress for the occasion. That means no jeans, no flip-flops and no plunging necklines or bare midriff. Sophia will organise suitable attire if you have none with you.’

Holly gave him a mock salute and a deep, obsequious bow. ‘Aye-aye, Captain.’

Julius strode about thirty or so paces before he swung back to look at her but she had already turned back to face the lake. He watched as she hurled a rock as far as she could. It landed in the middle of the water and sank with a loud plop, but not before it created tsunami-like ripples over the surface.

CHAPTER THREE

HOLLY WAITED UNTIL Julius was out of sight before she left the lakeside. What right did he have to tell her how to dress? No man was going to tell her what she could and couldn’t do. If she wanted to wear jeans, she would wear them. She’d wear high-cut denim shorts and trashy high heels to his stuck-up dinner table if she wanted to. He couldn’t force her to dress up like one of his posh girlfriends. He might deny having a current lady friend but no man with his sort of looks went long between hook-ups.

He had so been going to kiss her. She had been waiting for him to do it. Silently egging him on. Waiting for him to break. What a triumph it was going to be when he finally did. She would get the biggest kick out of seeing him topple from his high horse. He had no right to lecture her as if she were ten years old. She would show him just how grown up she was. He wasn’t dealing with a wilful child. He was dealing with a woman who knew how to make a man weaken at the knees. She would do him before he could do her. Although, the thought of having him do her was strangely appealing. He wasn’t her type, with his control freak ways, but he was so darn attractive it almost hurt her eyeballs to look at him.

What was it about him that seemed vaguely familiar? His surname kept ringing a faint bell of recognition in her head. Where had she heard the name Ravensdale before?

And then it finally dawned on her.

He was the son—one of the twin sons—of the famous Shakespearean actors Richard Ravensdale and Elisabetta Albertini. They were London theatre royalty; Holly had seen articles about them in gossip magazines. Not that she ever had the money to buy such magazines but occasionally one of the shelters she had stayed in had them lying about.

Julius’s parents had married thirty-four years ago after an affair during a London season of Much Ado About Nothing and celebrated their first wedding anniversary with the birth of identical twin boys. Seven turbulent years later, they had had a very public and acrimonious divorce. Then, three years later, they’d reunited in a whirlwind of publicity, remarried in a big celebrity-attended wedding service, and exactly nine months later Elisabetta had given birth to a daughter called Miranda.

Holly wondered if Julius had chosen to work and live in Argentina as a way of putting some distance between himself and his famous parents. The attention they attracted would be difficult to deal with, especially since what she had read indicated neither he nor his siblings had any aspirations to be on the stage. He hadn’t once mentioned his parents’ fame, although he’d had plenty of opportunity to do so.

Was that why he had initially been so reluctant to have her here? Would her presence draw press attention his way he would rather avoid? If the press got a whiff of her chequered background it might cause all sorts of speculation. Holly could imagine the headlines: Celebrities’ Son Living with Trailer Trash with Criminal Record. How would that go down with Julius’s sense of propriety?

Holly pursed her lips as she thought about her next move. If she called the press it would draw too much attention to herself just now. She didn’t want her creep-aholic stepfather to know where she currently was, although, given the friends in high places he had, she wouldn’t put it past him to know already or to make it his business to find out.

Franco Morales had influence that had already stretched further and wider than she had planned and prepared for. No sooner would she get herself back on her feet in a new job and a new place than something would go wrong. Her last employer had accused her of stealing from the till. Holly might have a rebellious streak that got her into trouble now and again but she was no thief. But the money had been found in her purse and she’d had no way of explaining how it had got there. Even the shop’s security cameras had ‘mysteriously’ been switched off at the alleged time of the theft.

Holly had been evicted from her last three flats due to property damage that had been wrongfully levelled at her. But she knew her stepfather had staged it, along with the shop theft. He had set her up by sending in a mole to do his dirty work. That was why she had keyed his brand-new sports car and sprayed that message in weed killer on his perfectly manicured front lawn right where his neighbours would see it: wife beater.

Holly believed her mother would never have killed herself if it hadn’t been for the long years of physical, emotional and financial abuse dished out to her by a man who had insisted on total obedience. Slavish obedience. Demeaning obedience that had left her mother a shadow of her former self. Franco had kept Holly and her mother oscillating between grinding poverty and occasional, large cash hand-outs that he’d never explained where they were sourced from. It was feast or famine. One minute the fridge was full of food. The next it was empty. Or sold. Furniture and appliances would be bought and then they would be sold to solve a ‘cash-flow problem’. Things Holly had saved up for and bought with her meagre and hard-earned pocket money would be tossed out in the garbage or disappear without any explanation.

Holly vowed she would never break under Franco’s tyranny. Even as a young child she had suffered his slaps and back-handers and put-downs without shedding a tear. Not even a whimper had escaped her lips. Not even her ‘time-outs’ on the balcony had made her give in. Even if her mother hadn’t been abused on the other side, Holly would have locked off her feelings; cemented them deep inside. Hardened herself so she could withstand the abuse without giving him the satisfaction of breaking her spirit.

But unfortunately her mother had not been as strong, or maybe it had just become too hard for her to try to protect Holly as well as herself. Holly had never doubted her mother’s love for her. Her mother had done everything she could to protect Holly from her stepfather but eventually it had become too much for her. She had become drug-and alcohol-dependent as a way to anaesthetise herself against the prison of her marriage to a beast of a man who had exploited her from the moment he’d met her.

Even though she had only been four at the time, Holly remembered the way Franco Morales had charmed her poor, grieving mother a few months after Holly’s father had been killed in a work-place accident. He had taken control of her mother as soon as he’d married her.

At first he had been supportive, taking care of everything so she no longer had to worry about keeping a roof over their heads. He’d even been kind to Holly, buying her toys and sweets. But then things had started to change. He’d begun subjecting her mother to physical and verbal punishment. It had started with the occasional blow-out at first. One-off losses of temper that he would profusely apologise for and then everything would return to normal. Then a week or two would pass and it would happen again. Then it was every week. Then it was every day—twice a day, even.

And then he’d started in on Holly. Insisting she be brought up according to his rules. His regulations. The slaps had begun for supposed disobedience. The back-handers for insolence or often for no reason at all. Holly had got so stressed and wound up by the anticipation of his abuse she would often trigger it so it was out of the way for that day.

Although he’d no longer smacked her once she got a little older, his verbal sprays had worsened as she’d got to her teens. He’d called her filthy names, taunting her with how unattractive she was, how unintelligent she was, how no one would ever want her. All of which had been confirmed when her mother had died. Holly hadn’t known what to do, where to go, how to manage her life. During that awful, anchorless time she had done things she wished she hadn’t and not done things she wished she had. She had mixed with the wrong people for the right reasons and mixed with the right people for the wrong reasons.

But things were going to be different now.

Holly was determined to get her life heading in the right direction. Once this community service was over, she was going to go to England, as far away as possible from her stepfather, back to the country of her mother’s birth.

Then, and only then, would she be free.

* * *

Holly walked back towards the villa via the gardens. There were hectares of them, both formal and informal. There was even a swimming pool set on a sun-drenched terrace that overlooked the fields where some glossy-backed horses were grazing. The summer sun was fiercer now than earlier. The clouds had shifted and the bright light sparkled off the swimming pool like thousands of brilliant diamonds scattered over the surface. She bent down and trailed her fingers in the water to test the temperature. It was deliciously, temptingly cool. Not that she was much of a swimmer, but the thought of cooling off was irresistible.

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