‘Surely there must be somebody else who could do it?’ Carly said.

‘But I don’t want anyone else doing it—I want you,’ Luis said. ‘After all, I am the one paying your salary, aren’t I?’

Carly’s hands balled into two fists, because now he had her in a corner and they both knew it. He paid her a generous amount of money, most of which she squirrelled away towards her goal of getting to medical school.

The smile had now left his lips.

‘I am growing bored with this discussion,’ he snapped. ‘Are you prepared to help me out or not?’

She recognised the implicit threat behind his words. Help me out or else.

Or else what? Go out and find a new job?

Go out and find a new job? One which wouldn’t leave her with so much free time to study for her medical school exams?

‘I’d be prepared to do it if you were prepared to give me some sort of bonus,’ she said suddenly.

‘Danger money, you mean?’ he mocked.

With a grimace he swung his long legs over the side of the massage bed, but not before Carly had seen a peek of hair-roughened thigh as the robe flapped open.

‘Yes, that’s right. Danger money,’ she croaked, quickly averting her gaze once more. ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself.’

AT HIS SERVICE

From glass slippers to silk sheets

From washing his sheets to slipping between them, from ironing his shirts to ripping them off … When the job description said ‘full benefits package’, this wasn’t quite what she had in mind!

But when you work for a man who’s used to getting everything he wants, how do you stop yourself becoming his latest acquisition?

Dear Reader,

One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.

There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.

I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia to escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100th story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”

So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?

I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.

Love,

Sharon xxx

Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.

SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…

The Housekeeper’s Awakening
Sharon Kendrick

www.millsandboon.co.uk

With special thanks to George Tilbury and Erika Ring, for teaching me how bodies heal.

Also, for invaluable insights into the world of motor racing, thank you to Keith Roberts and team-owner Roland Dane. Roland, in particular, helped breathe life into Luis Martinez!

And to Peter Crone for his invaluable help with wind-farms (although they appear in Murat’s book—SEDUCED BY THE SULTAN!)

Contents

Cover

Introduction

AT HIS SERVICE

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

Acknowledgements

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

CARLY’S FINGERS STILLED as the angry voice echoed through the house like a low rumble of thunder.

‘Carly!’

She stared at the cornstarch which had lodged itself under her fingernails.

Now what?

She supposed she could try ignoring him but what would be the point? When her fractious, brilliant, mercurial boss wanted something he wanted it ten minutes ago; preferably sooner. He was driven, committed and single-minded—even when operating at fifty per cent of his usual capacity. It was just that fifty per cent of Luis Martinez’s capacity would be full throttle for most men.

She pulled a face. Hadn’t he already disrupted the peace enough times over the last few weeks with his incessant orders and his bad temper? She supposed that he’d had a pretty good reason to be more demanding than usual, but even so... She had lost count of the times she’d been forced to bite her tongue, when he’d snapped out yet another arrogant command. Maybe that quicksilver mind of his would focus on something else if she pretended she hadn’t heard him. Maybe if she wished hard enough, he might just go away and leave her alone.

Preferably for ever.

‘Carly!’

Maybe not. The shout had grown even more impatient now, so she took off her apron and shook her ponytail free. Quickly washing her hands, she set off towards the gym complex at the back of the house, where Luis Enrique Gabriel Martinez was currently undergoing another rehabilitation session with his physiotherapist.

Or rather, rehabilitation was what he was supposed to be doing, following the car crash which everyone said he’d been lucky to survive. Lately, Carly had wondered if the daily sessions had slipped over the boundary from the professional to the personal. Which might explain why the previously cool physiotherapist had started adding significant amounts of make-up before her visits, and spraying herself with a cloud of gingery-lemon scent just before she rang the doorbell. But that was par for the course, wasn’t it? Luis had something special when it came to women. Something to do with those rugged South American looks and an unquenchable appetite for life which frequently courted danger.

Luis came, saw and conquered—though not necessarily in that order. He had an unerring ability to turn women into puddles of meek surrender, even if he happened to be lying stricken on a hospital bed at the time. Hadn’t half the nurses who had treated him turned up here after he’d discharged himself? They had trooped through the door, bearing nervous smiles and sad little bunches of grapes—along with some pretty flimsy excuses about why they were visiting. But Carly had known exactly why they were visiting. A bed-bound and very sexy billionaire was an irresistible target, though to her surprise he’d given them all short shrift—even the platinum blonde with the legs which seemed to go all the way up to her armpits.

Carly was just grateful to be one of the few women immune to the Argentinian’s careless charm, even if the truth of it was that he’d never actually tried to charm her. Maybe that was one of the advantages of being known as a dedicated ‘plain Jane’—that your sex god of a boss would inevitably look through you as if you were part of the wallpaper. Which left her free to do her job and work towards a brighter future. And to remind herself of Luis’s many negative qualities: his selfishness, restlessness and disregard for his own safety—as well as his annoying habit of leaving tiny espresso cups all around the house, which she was always finding in the most unexpected places.

She reached the gym complex and hesitated for a moment, wondering if it might be better to wait until he had finished his massage.

‘Carly!’

Had he heard her approaching, even though in these old sneakers her footsteps were practically silent? She knew it was said of Luis Martinez that his senses were as finely tuned as his cars and one of the reasons why he had dominated the racing scene for so long.

Still she hesitated.

‘Carly, will you stop skulking around outside the door and get yourself in here!’

His raised tone was arrogant and peremptory and she guessed that some people would have found it offensive to be spoken to in such a way, but Carly was used to Luis Martinez by now. She knew what his entourage said about him. That his bark was worse than his bite. Though she wasn’t sure if that bit was strictly true. His last but one girlfriend had seemed rather fond of his bite. Why else would she have kept appearing at breakfast during her brief tenure as his lover sporting bruises on her neck with a kind of joyful pride, as if she’d spent the night with some obliging vampire?

Knowing that she couldn’t put it off any longer, Carly opened the gym door and walked into the room where her famous employer was lying on his back on the narrow massage table. His dark head was pillowed on his clasped hands and his golden-olive body was outlined against the white sheet. His gaze alighted on her and his black eyes narrowed with something which looked like relief.

Which was weird. She thought that they tolerated each other pretty well, but there wasn’t what you’d call any real affection between them.

Or maybe it was not so weird after all. Quickly, she became aware of the tension in the room and of two things which couldn’t go unnoticed. That Mary Houghton, the physiotherapist, was standing on the far side of the room breathing rather heavily as she stared fixedly down at her shoes. And that Luis was completely naked, save for the trio of small white towels which were strategically placed at his groin.

A wave of colour swept into Carly’s face and suddenly she felt angry. Wouldn’t it have been polite for him to have covered up before she arrived? Surely he must have known that it simply wasn’t done to greet a member of your staff in such a way. That she might find it...embarrassing to see that rippling chest and broad shoulders on display. Or that it was arrogant to flaunt those long, bare legs, which were currently sprawled out in front of him?

She kept away from men and all their complications—and with good reason. Experience had made her wary; but for once, all her latent fears and hang-ups about the opposite sex were put on hold as she stared at her boss with reluctant fascination.

Looking at him now, it was easy to see why women adored him. Why the newspapers had nicknamed him The Love Machine, when he’d been at the peak of his powers, and motor-racing champion of the world. Before her time, of course, but Carly had heard of him, even then. Everyone had.

His face had been everywhere—on or off the track. When he hadn’t been standing on podiums, garlanded in the winner’s laurels and spraying champagne over the adoring crowds, he had been an advertiser’s dream. Magnified images of Luis Martinez wearing expensive watches, with that famously devil-may-care smile on his face, were regularly emblazoned over giant billboards. Off-duty, his fascination had been equally compelling. Hunky South American billionaires always provided good copy—especially as he was rarely seen without the requisite blonde clinging possessively to his arm. And if some perceptive journalist had once remarked that his jet-dark eyes looked almost empty—perhaps that only added to his appeal.

Because Luis Martinez wasn’t just good-looking—even Carly recognised that. There was something wild about him. Something untamed. He was the trophy which was always just out of reach. The desired object which no woman could hold onto for long. That mane of slightly too-long black hair gave him a reckless, buccaneering look and those black eyes were now studying her in a way which was making her feel distinctly uncomfortable.

Turning away from his scrutiny, she looked at Mary Houghton, who had been coming to his English mansion for weeks now. With her neat figure and shiny hair, the physiotherapist looked as pretty as she always did in her crisp white uniform, but Carly thought she could see a shadow of hurt clouding the other woman’s features.

‘So there you are, Carly,’ said Luis, his voice heavy with sarcasm. ‘At last. Did you fly in from the opposite side of the world to get here? You know I don’t like to be kept waiting.’

‘I was busy making alfajores,’ said Carly. ‘For you to have with your coffee later.’

‘Ah, yes.’ He gave her a grudging nod. ‘Your timekeeping may be abysmal, but nobody can deny that you’re an excellent cook. And your alfajores are as good as those which I used to eat when I was growing up.’

‘Was there something special you wanted?’ questioned Carly pointedly. ‘Because this particular kind of baking doesn’t lend itself kindly to interruptions.’

‘As the world’s worst timekeeper, I don’t think you’re in a position to lecture me on time management,’ he snapped, turning his head to look at Mary Houghton, who for some reason had gone very red. ‘I sometimes think Carly forgets that a certain degree of submissiveness is a desirable quality in a housekeeper. But she is undoubtedly capable and so I am prepared to tolerate her occasional insubordination. Do you think she can do it, Mary—can someone like her get me back to my fighting best, now that you are intent on leaving me?’

By now, Carly had stopped thinking about the Argentinian cakes which were Luis’s favourites, or his arrogant sense of entitlement. She was too interested in the fraught atmosphere to even object to being talked about as if she were an inanimate object. She wanted to know why the previously cool physiotherapist was now chewing on her lip as if something awful had happened.

Had it?

‘Is something wrong?’ she asked.

Mary Houghton gave Carly a lukewarm smile accompanied by an awkward shrug of her shoulders. ‘Not exactly...wrong. But my professional association with Señor Martinez has...come to an end. He no longer requires the services of a physiotherapist,’ she said, and for a moment her voice sounded a little unsteady. ‘But he will continue to need massage and exercise for the next few weeks on a regular basis to ensure a complete recovery, and someone needs to oversee that.’

‘Right,’ said Carly uncertainly, because she couldn’t see where all this was leading.

Luis fixed her with a piercing look, his black eyes boring into her like twin lasers. ‘You wouldn’t have a problem taking over from Mary for a while, would you, Carly? You’re pretty good with your hands, aren’t you?’

‘Me?’ The word came out as a horrified croak.

‘Why not?’

Carly’s eyes widened, because suddenly all her fears didn’t seem so latent any more. The thought of going anywhere near a half-naked man was making her skin crawl—even if that man was Luis Martinez. She swallowed. ‘You mean, I’d be expected to massage you?’

Now there was a definite glint in his eyes and she couldn’t work out if it was displeasure or amusement. ‘Why, is that such an abhorrent thought to you, Carly?’

‘No, no, of course not.’ But it was. Of course it was. Wouldn’t he laugh out loud if he realised how little she knew about men? Wouldn’t she be the last person he’d choose as his temporary masseuse, if he knew what a naïve innocent she was? So should she tell him the truth—if not all of it, then at least some?

Of course she should tell him!

She shrugged her shoulders, aware of the heightened rush of colour to her cheeks as she mumbled out the words. ‘It’s just that I’ve...well, I’ve never actually given anyone a massage before.’

‘Oh, that won’t be a problem.’ Mary Houghton’s cool accent cut through Carly’s stumbled explanation. ‘I can show you the basic technique—it isn’t difficult. If you’re good with your hands, you won’t have a problem with it. The exercises—ditto. They’re easy enough to pick up and Señor Martinez already knows how to do them properly. The most important thing you can do is to ensure he keeps to a regular schedule.’

‘Think you can do it, Carly?’

The silky South American voice filtered through the air and as Carly turned, the intensity of his gaze suddenly made her feel dizzy. And uncomfortable. It was as if he’d never really looked at her properly before. Or at least, not like that. She got the feeling that he had always regarded her as one of the fixtures and fittings—like one of the squashy velvet sofas which he sometimes lay on in the evenings if he’d brought a woman back here. But now his eyes were almost...calculating and she felt a stab of alarm as he assessed her. Was he thinking what countless men had doubtless thought before? That she was plain and awkward and didn’t make the best of herself. Would it surprise him to know that she liked it that way? That she liked to fade into the background? Because life was safer that way. Safer and more predictable.

Pushing away the nudge of dark memories with an efficiency born of years of practice, she considered his question. Of course she could learn how to massage him because—as he’d just said—she was very good with her hands. She ran his English home like clockwork, didn’t she? She cooked and cleaned and made sure the Egyptian cotton sheets were softly ironed whenever he was in residence. She arranged for caterers to arrive if he was hosting a big party, or for prize-winning chefs to be ferried down from London if he was holding a more intimate gathering. She had florists on speed dial, ready to deck his house with fragrant blooms at the drop of a hat or to float candle-topped lilies in his outdoor pool, if the weather remained fine enough.

What she wished she had the courage to say was that she didn’t want to do it. That the thought of going anywhere near his body was making her feel...peculiar. And even though her dream of being a doctor was what kept her in this fairly mundane job—she didn’t want her first experience of the therapeutic to be with a man with the reputation of Luis Martinez.

Imagine having to touch his skin, especially if he was barely covered by a few meagre towels, as he was at the moment. Imagine being closeted alone in the massage room with him, day after day. Having to put up with his short fuse and bad temper in such an intimate setting. Luis Martinez she could cope with, yes, but preferably with as much distance between them as possible.

‘Surely there must be somebody else who could do it?’ she said.

‘But I don’t want anyone else doing it—I want you,’ he said. ‘Or do you have other things which are occupying you, Carly? Things which are making too many demands on your time and which will prevent you from spending time doing what I am asking you to do? Is there something I should know about? After all, I am the one paying your salary, aren’t I?’

Carly’s hands balled into two fists, because now he had her in a corner and they both knew it. He paid her a staggeringly generous amount of money, most of which she squirrelled away towards her goal of getting to med school.

She had the cushiest of positions here, which left her plenty of time to study. As jobs went, she would go so far as to say she loved working here. She loved it most when Luis was out of the country, which was most of the time. He had gorgeous homes in far-flung corners of the world, sited wherever he had business interests, and his English residence was usually bottom on his list of visits. She wasn’t even sure why he bothered keeping this vast, country house until one day she had summoned up the courage to ask his burly assistant, Diego. ‘Tax,’ had been the ex-wrestler’s terse reply.

Carly’s role was to keep the house in a constant state of readiness in case Luis should decide to pay an unexpected visit. In fact, he wouldn’t be here now were it not for the charity car race which she thought he’d been insane to enter and which had ended with him smashing his pelvis and spending weeks in hospital.

She looked at him—thinking about his general high-handedness and arrogance and whether she would be able to tolerate it on a far more intimate basis. How could she possibly massage him without giving into the temptation to sink her fingernails into that silken olive flesh of his and make him squirm? How on earth would she be able to touch such a notorious sex god, without making a complete and utter fool of herself?

‘I just wonder whether you might be better getting another professional in,’ she said stubbornly.

He flicked a glance at Mary Houghton, who was still standing in exactly the same position and Carly saw his mouth twist with undisguised irritation. ‘Can you give us a moment, please, Mary?’

‘Of course I can. I’ll...I’ll talk to you when you’ve finished in here, Carly.’ There was a pause, before Mary held her hand out. ‘Goodbye, Luis. It’s been...well, it’s been great.’

He nodded, but Carly thought how cold his face looked as he propped himself up on one elbow, before shaking the physiotherapist’s hand. Whatever Mary had said or done had not pleased him.

‘Goodbye, Mary,’ he said.

There was silence as she left the room and Luis sat up—impatiently gesturing for Carly to hand him the robe hanging from a hook on the back of the door.

She did as he wanted—quickly averting her eyes until he’d covered up with the black towelling robe, but when he spoke, he still sounded irritated.

‘Why are you so reluctant to do what I ask?’ he demanded. ‘Why are you being so damned stubborn?’

For a moment Carly didn’t answer. Would he scoff if he knew that his proposed intimacy scared her? Or would he just be shocked to learn that she had allowed one horrendous experience to colour her judgement—and she’d spent her life running away from the kind of personal contact which most women of her age considered perfectly natural? Someone like Luis would probably tell her to ‘move on’, in the way that people did—as if it were that easy.

And this was about more than what had happened to her, wasn’t it? She could see nothing but trouble if she agreed, because rich and powerful men like Luis were trouble. Hadn’t her own sister been chasing that kind of man ever since she’d first sprouted breasts, and didn’t she keep on going back for more—despite getting knocked back, time after time?

Thoughts of Bella’s inglorious escapades flitted through her mind as she met Luis’s luminous gaze. ‘I don’t want to neglect my housekeeping duties,’ she said.

‘Then get somebody else to do the cooking and the cleaning instead of you. How difficult can it be?’

Carly flushed. She knew that housekeeping wasn’t up there with being a lawyer or a doctor, but she still found it faintly humiliating to hear Luis dismiss her job quite so flippantly.

‘Or get in a professional masseuse who could do it better than I ever could?’ she suggested again.

‘No,’ he said, almost viciously. ‘I’m sick of strangers. Sick of people with different agendas, coming into my house and telling me what I must and mustn’t do.’ His mouth hardened into a forbidding line. ‘What’s the matter, Carly? Are you objecting on the basis that providing massage for your recuperating boss isn’t written into your contract?’

‘I haven’t got a contract,’ she said bluntly.

‘You haven’t?’

‘No. You told me when I interviewed for the job that if I didn’t trust you to give me your word, then you weren’t the kind of person you wanted working for you.’

An arrogant smile spread over his lips. ‘Did I really say that?’

‘Yes. You did.’ And she had accepted his terms, hadn’t she, even if the logical side of her brain had told her that she’d been a fool to do so? In fact, she’d practically bitten his hand off, because she had recognised that Luis Martinez was offering her the kind of opportunity which wasn’t going to come her way again. A place to live and a salary big enough to make substantial savings for her future.

The smile had now left his lips.

‘I am growing bored with this discussion,’ he snapped. ‘Are you prepared to help me out or not?’

She recognised the implicit threat behind his words. Help me out or else.

Or else what?

Go out and find a new job? One which wouldn’t leave her with so much free time to study for her exams? She frowned as she thought about the champagne bill from his last party and a new resolve filled her.

‘I’d be prepared to do it, if you were prepared to give me some sort of bonus,’ she said suddenly.

‘Danger money, you mean?’ he mocked. With a grimace he swung his long legs over the side of the massage bed, but not before Carly had seen a peek of hair-roughened thigh as the robe flapped open.

‘Yes, that’s right. Danger money,’ she croaked, quickly averting her gaze once more. ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself.’

He gave a short laugh. ‘Funny. I never really had you down as a negotiator, Carly.’

‘Oh? And why’s that?’

Luis didn’t answer immediately, just concentrated on stretching his hips, the way that Mary had shown him. He wouldn’t bother telling his plain little housekeeper that she had merely confirmed his belief that everyone had a price, because that might upset her, and there was no point in upsetting a woman if it could possibly be avoided. Often, of course, it couldn’t. Usually because they weren’t listening to what you were saying, or they thought they could change your mind for you.

Or they started falling in love with you, even though you hadn’t given them the slightest encouragement to do so. His mouth hardened. That had been Mary Houghton’s mistake. He’d seen it growing day by day, until in the end she could barely look at him without blushing. She’d made it clear that she was keen for a...liaison and, yes, he’d been tempted. Of course he had. She was a good-looking woman and hadn’t he read somewhere that physiotherapists made great lovers because they knew how the body worked? But it had been highly unprofessional of her, and some deep-rooted and rather old-fashioned prejudice against such things had appalled him.

He turned his attention back to Carly. At least in her he had nothing to fear because sexual attraction was unlikely to rear its head. He found himself wondering if she bothered keeping a mirror in her bedroom, or whether she just didn’t see what the rest of the world saw.

Her thick brown hair was tugged back from her face in a ponytail and she wore no make-up. He’d never seen mascara on those pale lashes which framed eyes the colour of iced tea, nor lipstick on her sometimes disapproving lips. A little blusher would have added some much-needed colour to her pale skin, and he’d often wondered why she insisted on wearing a plain blue overall during working hours. To protect her clothes, she said—though, from the glimpses he’d caught of them, hers were not the kind of clothes which looked as if they needed much in the way of protection. Weren’t man-made fabrics notoriously hard-wearing? They were also very unflattering when stretched tightly over unfashionably curvy bodies like hers.

Luis was used to women who turned femininity into an art form. Who invested vast amounts of time and money making themselves look beautiful, then spent the rest of their lives trying to preserve that state of being. But not this one. Oh, no. Definitely not this one.

His lips flattened into a wry smile. What was it that the English said? Never to judge a book by its cover. And the old adage did have some truth in it—because despite her plainness and total lack of adornment, nobody could deny that Carly Conner had spirit. He could think of no other woman who would have hesitated for more than a second at the thought of—literally—getting their hands on him. Which of course was precisely the reason why he wanted her for the job. He needed to get fit, and he needed to do it as quickly as possible—because this inactivity was driving him crazy.

All he wanted was to feel normal again. He loathed the world passing him by, so that all he could do was watch it. Because inactivity left you with time to think. It left you feeling as if something was missing. He wanted to get back on the ski slopes. He wanted to pilot a plane again. He wanted the challenge of dangerous sports to fill him with adrenaline and make him feel alive again.

His mouth twisted as he levered himself off the bed.

‘Hand me my crutches, will you, Carly?’

She raised her eyebrows.

He gave a small growl. ‘Please.’

Silently, Carly handed them over and watched as he grasped them, straightening up to his full and impressive height. It still seemed strange to see a man as powerful as Luis needing crutches, but at least he was well on the road to recovery now. Almost unscathed, he had come through an accident the doctors said he’d been lucky to survive.

He hadn’t raced professionally for five years, but the lure of an enormous charity prize organised by one of the big car manufacturers had proved too much to resist. That, and an inbuilt arrogance that he was indestructible...and a nature which loved to embrace danger in its many forms.

She remembered the day it had happened, when she’d received the phone call to say he’d been rushed to hospital. Her heart had been racing as she had driven through the narrow country roads, reaching the accident and emergency department and fearing the worst, to be told that he’d been taken to Theatre and they weren’t sure how bad it was.

His entourage had been going crazy. There had been people rushing around all over the place and getting in the way of the medical staff. Security people. PR people. Diego, his swarthy assistant, had been dealing with the press, and his lawyers were busily engaged with threats of litigation, claiming that the racetrack had been unsafe.

Carly wondered if any of them had actually remembered that they were all there because a man was sick and wounded. And that was when her old pattern of wanting to care had kicked in. She had crept upstairs to the intensive care unit, where the nurse had let her sit with him and everyone else had been barred, on the grounds that any more excitement might hinder his recovery. She remembered thinking how alone he looked, despite all his money and success. There had been no family to visit. His parents were dead and he had no brothers or sisters. Carly had been the only one there for him.

All that night she had stayed put, holding his motionless hand and running her fingertips over it. Telling the unresponsive figure who dominated the narrow hospital gurney that he was going to be okay. But the experience had been a strangely powerful one. It had been a shock to see him looking so vulnerable and for a short while Carly’s feelings towards her irascible boss had undergone a slight transformation. For a while she had felt almost tender towards him...

Until he had started recovering and had become his usual arrogant self. She had been elbowed out of the way then, when the first of a long stream of women had arrived, all vying with each other in their tiny leather miniskirts—because everyone knew that the ex-world champion was turned on by leather. She remembered turning up at the ward one day to find a stunning blonde in thigh-high boots groping him under the bed-sheet. And Carly hadn’t bothered visiting again. She hadn’t seen him again until he’d discharged himself home against his doctors’ advice.

But she suspected that the accident had changed him, as she knew that near-fatal accidents sometimes did. Even though the house was vast, it had seemed overcrowded with his people mooching around the place, not sure what to do with themselves while their boss was recovering. And Luis had been even more bad-tempered than usual. He hadn’t liked people trailing in and out of his room to speak to him, saying that it made him feel like a dying king. Demanding peace, he had sent his entire entourage back to Buenos Aires—even Diego. Carly remembered their astonishment at being sent packing. And hers. Because once again, Luis Martinez really was on his own. Only this time, he was alone with her.

Emerging from her silent reverie, she realised that his eyes were trained on her and that he was waiting for the answer to a question which, in reality, was little more than an order.

‘Yes, I’ll do it.’ She sighed. ‘I’d better go and talk to Mary and get her to run over exactly what it is you need, though I don’t know why you couldn’t just have carried on paying for her to see you privately.’

She soon discovered why, when she found Mary Houghton in the garden room, staring rigidly out of the French windows at the rain-soaked gardens outside. The bright hues of the summer flowers looked like fragments of a shattered rainbow, but all Carly could see was that the physiotherapist’s shoulders were shaking slightly.

Was the cool Englishwoman crying?

‘Mary?’ she questioned gently. ‘Are you okay?’

It was a few moments before Mary turned round and Carly got her answer from the telltale glitter in the other woman’s eyes.

‘How does he do it, Carly?’ Mary questioned in a shaky voice. ‘How does he get usually sane women like me to fall for a man they don’t even like? How come he’s dumped me in the coldest way imaginable and I still end up thinking he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread?’

Carly tried to crack a joke, anything to lighten the atmosphere and to take that terrible look of pain from Mary’s face. ‘Well, I’ve never been a great fan of sliced bread myself—which is why I always make my own.’

Mary swallowed. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. Especially not to you. You work for him all the time—you probably deserve my sympathy, instead of me asking for yours.’

‘Don’t worry about it. You’re not the first woman he’s reduced to tears and you won’t be the last.’ Carly shrugged. ‘I don’t know how he does it, to be honest. I don’t think it’s calculated, or even intentional. He just seems to have that indefinable something which makes women go crazy for him. Maybe it’s inevitable when you’re that good-looking and rich and powerful and—’

‘Do you know,’ interrupted Mary, her voice suddenly urgent, ‘that I’ve never fancied a male patient before? Never. Not once. The thought had never even crossed my mind—though obviously not many men like Luis Martinez end up on the hospital wards. I can’t believe that I allowed him to see it.’ She bit her lip. ‘It’s so...so...unprofessional. And so humiliating. And now he’s asked me to go, and you know what? I deserve to be let go.’

Carly didn’t know what to say. She found herself thinking that things were rarely what they seemed. She’d always thought of Mary Houghton as cool and unflappable. She’d seen her as one of those composed Englishwomen who knew exactly what they were doing and where they were heading. And yet one lazy look from the smouldering black eyes of Luis Martinez and she was as jittery as a schoolgirl who’d just seen her pop-star idol in the flesh.

Carly looked at her. Maybe she should be glad of the hard lesson she’d learned all those years ago. Because didn’t they say that heartbreak was almost as painful as bereavement? And who in their right mind would want to be going through what the physiotherapist was clearly going through right now?

She looked at Mary. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

Mary pursed her lips together. ‘Oh, I’ll get over it. And maybe it’s all for the best. Maybe I’ll start dating that sweet young doctor who’s been asking me out for weeks, and forget about a man who’s famous for breaking women’s hearts. Now,’ she said briskly. ‘Let me show you what you need to do to get Luis back to full fitness.’

‘If you’re sure you’re okay?’

‘Carly, I’m fine!’

But Carly noticed Mary delving into her handbag for a tissue and that she blew her nose for a suspiciously long time afterwards.

CHAPTER TWO

CARLY COULD FEEL her heart racing like a train, because this was weird.

It was weirder than weird.

Her hands were unsteady as they positioned themselves above Luis’s bare back and she drew in a deep breath, praying he wouldn’t guess how nervous she was. Praying that she wouldn’t behave like a ham-fisted failure as she began to do exactly what Mary had taught her. It wasn’t difficult, she told herself fiercely. Massage was a skill, yes—but it was one that thousands of people did every single day.

But even though the thought of touching Luis’s skin was making her mouth grow dry with fear, it seemed there was no way she could avoid it. He was paying her a bonus. They had agreed that this was a deal. And wasn’t it crazy to have reached this age and still be scared of touching a man? She lowered her hands towards his gleaming skin and thought about the way she’d let the past impact so profoundly on the present. Was she going to let some worthless piece of scum ruin her life for ever?

Because if she was ever going to fulfil her dream of becoming a doctor, she was going to have to touch people like this every day.

Pressing the heels of her palms deep into his silken flesh, she began to move her hands, glad he couldn’t see her face. Wouldn’t he laugh himself silly to know that she was flushed with embarrassment?

It was distracting seeing him like this—wearing nothing but a pair of close-fitting black briefs. Catching sight of him and his billionaire buddies lounging around the pool during one of the few hot days last summer while she carried out a tray of drinks was not the same thing at all.

She thought how pale her hands looked against the olive hue of his skin and noticed that her fingers were trembling slightly as they moved over his warm flesh. But to her surprise her nerves soon left her once she got into some kind of rhythm. If she concentrated on the healing aspects of the task, it was easy to push away her uncomfortable thoughts. In a way, it was the opposite of working with pastry, which needed cool, quick movements. For this, her hands were warm and oily and her movements slow and deliberate. She pushed deep into his latissimus dorsi muscles and he gave a little groan.

‘Is that okay?’ she questioned nervously.

He gave a grunt and she wasn’t quite sure if he was agreeing with her or not.

‘I’m not hurting you, am I?’

Luis shook his head and shifted a little, the rough towel rubbing beneath his crotch, which was precisely where he did not want to focus his attention. Santo cielos! No, she was not hurting him—but he wondered if she was trying to torture him. Resting his cheek against his crossed arms, he closed his eyes, unable to decide whether this was heaven or hell. Or perhaps a mixture of both.

What the hell was happening here?

He could feel her hands moving further down his back, skating tantalisingly over the taut lines of his buttocks before alighting on the tops of his thighs. He swallowed as the minutes ticked by and suddenly he found himself lost in the sensations she was producing. If she was nervous, you would never have guessed it. Apart from that nervous flutter of her fingers at the beginning, she had taken to it as if she had been born to stroke at a man’s skin like this. Who would ever have thought that his mousey little housekeeper had the touch of an angel?

Yet she had been the model of brisk proficiency from the moment she’d greeted him, with nothing but a brief smile as he had lain face down on the bed. She certainly wasn’t flirting with him, which made him wonder what was making him feel so aroused. How could Carly—plain little Carly—manage to make him feel like this? Was it because she wasn’t flirting with him and he wasn’t used to that? For a moment he imagined her requesting briskly that he lift up his buttocks, so that she could slide her hands underneath him. He thought about her taking his rapidly growing hardness between her fingers and stroking him to a blessed and swift release.

His mouth dried.

‘No, you’re not hurting me,’ he said eventually, when he was certain his voice wouldn’t come out sounding like some kind of strangled groan.

She continued to work in silence. He could feel her fingers sinking deeper into his flesh and as the muscles began to loosen up beneath her touch he couldn’t seem to stop himself fantasising about her some more. He wondered what her breasts might look like if she were to remove that hideous overall she was wearing. An image of pale mounds tipped with rosy points swam into his mind with disturbing clarity. He pictured his tongue tracing a slow, wet circle around one puckered nub and he shifted his aroused body again in a vain bid to make himself comfortable.

The movement must have registered, for her hands stilled.

‘You’re sure I’m not hurting you?’

Against the lavender-scented doughnut of a pillow on which his cheek was resting, Luis shook his head. ‘No,’ he said huskily. ‘You have a very...natural touch. I can’t believe you haven’t done anything like this before.’

‘Mary was very helpful. She showed me exactly what to do. She said that if I pressed firmly on key parts of the body...like this...that it would be effective. And then last night I studied lots of technique and tips on my computer.’

His instinctive groan of satisfaction made his words come out as a muffled drawl. ‘You have nothing better to do on a Friday night than look up massage technique?’

There was a pause.

‘I like to do a job properly. And you’re paying me a very generous bonus to do this.’

Her emphasis on the financial made him feel comfortable about interrogating her, although it didn’t occur to him until afterwards to wonder why he should be interested in her social life. ‘So is there no irritable boyfriend wanting to know why your boss is demanding so much of your time?’

There was another pause, a slightly longer one this time. She seemed to choose her words carefully. ‘I don’t have a boyfriend, no,’ she said. ‘But if I did, I don’t really think this job would be compatible with it. Not if it was a serious relationship.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because when you’re here the hours are long and erratic and because I’m living in someone else’s house and—’

‘Not why a live-in job isn’t compatible with a relationship,’ he interrupted impatiently. ‘You wouldn’t need to be a genius to work that one out. No, I meant why don’t you have a boyfriend?’

Carly rubbed some more oil into the palms of her hands. It was difficult to come up with a reasonable answer to his question. Difficult to come up with anything which sounded sensible when her hands were in contact with his skin like this. If she hadn’t been feeling so disorientated by what was happening, she might have told him that her social life was none of his business. Or she might even have hinted that one dreadful experience had put her off men for ever. But she couldn’t really think of anything except how gorgeous he felt. She was being bombarded with powerful sensations and none of them were welcome—or expected.

All the blinds had been drawn and the semi-darkened room felt claustrophobic because the dimensions seemed to have shrunk. Candles were wafting out a subtle sandalwood scent and there was faint whale-like music coming from the sound system, just as Mary had suggested. She knew these small additions were intended to create a relaxed atmosphere and maybe it was working for Luis, but it certainly wasn’t working for her.

Because the unimaginable was happening. Instead of being frozen with fear, all she could feel was a slow-building pleasure whenever she touched him. She stared down at his olive-skinned body, because where else was she going to look? And even though he was wearing a pair of black briefs instead of those three terrifyingly small towels which had been covering him yesterday, they weren’t nearly as much of an advantage as they should have been. Because yes, they provided a necessary barrier of modesty—but they also emphasised the very masculine outlines of his body. They made the rocky globes of his buttocks look as if they’d been coated in liquorice, and liquorice had always been her favourite kind of sweet.

‘I’m not really interested in men,’ she said at last, her words making a mockery of her thoughts.

‘Ah. You prefer women?’

‘No!’ She was shocked by his openness, and unreasonably hurt by his assumption. She told herself that he was perfectly entitled to think what he liked about her, just as she was perfectly within her rights to tell him that her sexuality was none of his business. But something made her answer him. As if she wanted him to know. Needed him to know. ‘I’m...straight.’

‘Ah.’ He turned his head to the side and she could see the faint smile which curved his lips. ‘So why is there no man in your life?’

‘It drives me mad when people say that. It’s the first thing people ask a single woman.’ She started massaging again, pressing the heels of her hands hard against the firm flesh, aware that she was running the risk of sounding defensive but suddenly she didn’t care. ‘You don’t have a girlfriend, do you? But I certainly don’t make it sound like some kind of character fault, or start interrogating you about it.’

‘I don’t have one particular partner, no, but I certainly have girlfriends from time to time. You, on the other hand, don’t.’

Her hands stopped mid-stroke and she stared at them. She thought they looked like pale starfish in a sea of gold. ‘How do you know that, when you’re not here most of the time?’

‘Because my estate manager keeps me up to speed with what’s going on. I like to know what’s happening with someone who has the entire run of my house while I’m not here, so obviously I enquire about you from time to time. Not that he tells me anything very interesting since, apparently, you live the life of a nun.’

Carly tensed, hearing the implicit criticism in his tone. ‘There’s nothing wrong with nuns,’ she said.

‘I didn’t suggest there was. But you haven’t taken any vows since you came to work for me, have you, Carly? Certainly not poverty or obedience,’ he persisted mockingly.

‘Actually, as an employer you do seem to require total obedience from your staff—though I can’t deny that you pay very well.’

‘Which only leaves chastity,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t it?’

Carly’s heart thundered again as she forced herself to restart the massage, trying to concentrate on the slow, circular movements instead of the bizarre turn of their conversation. ‘What I do in my spare time is none of your business.’

‘He said that you always seem to have your head in a book,’ observed Luis, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘And that you go to evening classes in the nearby town.’

‘And is there something wrong with wanting to improve myself?’ she demanded. ‘Perhaps I should throw a wild party when you leave. Give the gardeners and the estate manager enough ammunition to earn me a reputation.’

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

‘No.’

‘Me neither,’ he said unexpectedly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘How about a swim now, Luis?’

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

He yawned. ‘Is that a suggestion?’

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

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

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

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

‘And this room isn’t?’

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

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

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

‘Sca—ry,’ he said sarcastically.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Do you think that’s wise?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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