Kept by the Spanish Billionaire

by Cathy Williams

‘No. I just think it’s odd that you don’t possess a pair. Anyway, I don’t want to go shopping. It was just a joke. I don’t actually care what you wear or what you own…’

  ‘No…?’ Rafael thought about what had brought him out today, playing truant for the first time in his life. He wanted to make sure that when she left the Hamptons she left behind all thoughts of his brother. ‘Shame…’

  Amy thought that she might have misheard. ‘Sorry?’ She cleared her throat. God, but that one little word had sent a shameful thrill racing through her and she couldn’t understand it.

  ‘I thought all women cared what people thought of them,’ Rafael said mildly.

  ‘Oh. Yes. No!’

  ‘I think shopping would be a very good idea,’ he mused. ‘After all, you can’t visit Manhattan and not shop.’ Under normal circumstances, he would have arranged with his secretary to take a couple of hours off work and show her the wonders that were the shopping districts of Manhattan. Failing that, he realised that he would have to take her himself, which might not be such a bad thing if getting to know her was his primary concern. Problem was that he had no idea where women went shopping in the city.

  ‘I can buy you a pair of jeans,’ Amy said, warming to the idea.

  ‘You really think I need some, do you?’ Rafael drawled.

  ‘Absolutely!’ Sometimes when he spoke the timbre of his voice was curiously sexy. Was he aware of that? He gave no inkling that there was a streak of vanity running through him, but surely he couldn’t miss the furtive glances other women directed at him? Could he? ‘And maybe a jazzy shirt as well instead of all those plain coloured ones you seem to like wearing…’

  He grinned and wondered how she would react if she only knew the cost of those ‘plain-coloured ones’! Each was hand tailored. Every six months he would dispose of one lot and replace with another. It might be boring but it was damned convenient.

  ‘Jazzy?’

  ‘Hawaiian print perhaps?’ Amy amused herself by imagining him in a ridiculous ensemble. It helped still her nervous awareness of him that had either been there all along or else had crept up on her when she was least expecting it. ‘Maybe something with large, bright flowers. That would make a change from dull old white or cream! Thank goodness you don’t work in an office. I bet you’d have lots of pinstriped suits to add to your collection!’

  Just the odd thirty or so, Rafael thought wryly.

  ‘Here’s the deal,’ he told her lazily. ‘You can shove me in something casual and I’ll dress you the way a woman should be dressed.’

  ‘The way a woman should be dressed?’

  ‘Oh, yes. No jeans that look as though they’ve been attacked with a pair of scissors…’

  ‘That’s how they’re supposed to look!’

  ‘And I pay for the lot…’

  ‘No way!’ She flushed. ‘That just wouldn’t be right. I mean, it’s not as though we’re going out. Not that that would make any difference. I don’t believe in a man paying for everything.’

  ‘Oh. You mean you’re one of those feminist types who insist on splitting everything straight down the middle? What if you had been dating the boss? Would you still have insisted on going Dutch?’

  ‘That would have been different.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I know this is going to sound as though I’ve got a different set of rules, but James has a lot of money. If I had been dating him…’ she shuddered at the thought ‘…I would happily have let him treat me to stuff. After all, I’m broke and he’s not. I would have paid him back in my own way.’

  ‘Why don’t you enlighten me?’ Rafael asked tightly.

  Oblivious to his change of tone, Amy gave the question serious thought. ‘I would have cooked him special meals…bought him little things that might have meant something to him…There are ways of showing appreciation that can’t be counted in financial terms. It’s a relative thing, isn’t it? I mean, a rich guy can throw money at a woman without missing it while the woman might only be able to afford something very small in comparison but it would mean a whole lot more because she would have to have saved to afford it in the first place.’

  ‘And you think that the gardener couldn’t possibly afford to splash out now and again…’

  ‘Maybe you can, but why should you? You barely know me.’

  ‘I’ve recently had a pretty generous bonus from the master,’ Rafael said gravely. ‘Humour me.’

  ‘Okay, but no strings attached.’

  ‘What kind of strings?’

  ‘You know what I’m talking about.’

  ‘Do I? Why don’t you fill me in?’

  ‘If…you might want to buy me an outfit because you don’t think I look feminine enough…’

  ‘Did I say that?’

  ‘Well, no, but…’

  ‘Actually, I think you’re incredibly feminine,’ Rafael contradicted. And one of the most endearingly feminine things she did was blush. As she was doing right now. Hardened career women, he realised, didn’t blush. Or at least none of the ones he had dated in the past. Amy might speak her mind with no respect for boundaries, but she still blushed like a teenager. He decided to rescue her from her embarrassment. ‘But if you want to put me in jeans, then I’ll put you in a skirt.’

  So it was settled. Between Long Island and Manhattan, he managed to unearth the names of some cheap and cheerful stores in Soho. The painful part of the day, he decided to get past first. This entailed Rafael, scraping together every ounce of control, trying on a variety of jeans, which she seemed to find hilarious. After the fifth shop and the eight pair, he decided to put his foot down and threatened to buy the next pair he tried on whether it fitted or not. Amy reluctantly chose. She had been enjoying herself. He looked completely different in jeans. Younger. Sexily dangerous in a more earthy, straightforward way. It should have been the other way around. He should have lived in jeans, just as she did, but there was no accounting for taste.

  As she watched him pay she could feel something shifting under her, some conviction altering and morphing into something else, but she shoved the uneasy thought to one side and concentrated on enjoying the day.

  She had brought spending money with her and she had given it to him before they had even left Long Island, so she didn’t feel guilty when he bought her an ice cream and, later, lunch, which they ate quickly because she wanted to explore as much as she could before they headed back.

  She had questions about everywhere and everything, Rafael noticed with amusement. He was blasé to the charms of New York. In fact, he barely noticed them, so it was refreshing to see things a little differently for once.

  ‘Do you ever wish you lived in New York instead of in your little house on someone else’s land?’ she asked at one point, and Rafael thought of his magnificent penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park. He felt a twinge of guilt and adroitly changed the subject.

  It was time for her to fulfill her half of the deal, he told her, and then he would take her to dinner. This time she insisted on paying, thankful that she had brought her credit cards with her.

  ‘I can’t afford to take you to the sort of place this kind of outfit requires…’ she said dubiously, because the elegant deep red-halter necked dress reeked of somewhere chic. But it was so lovely. Amy realised how entrenched she had become in her casual lifestyle. Catering required no thought when it came to clothes and she never went anywhere that demanded formal dress. She could feel her eyes blurring when she walked out to show him the fit.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Rafael asked, startled, tilting her face up.

  ‘Nothing.’ Amy’s voice was wobbly but she steadied herself and plastered her usual cheerful smile on her face. It wouldn’t have fooled an idiot.

  ‘I don’t think there’s any need to try anything else on. We’ll take this one.’

  ‘And what,’ he asked as soon as they were outside, ‘was that all about?’

  But by now Amy’s brief glimpse of loss had pas
sed. ‘The shock of seeing myself in a dress brought on a sudden attack of the maudlin,’ she laughed. ‘I was always the tomboy in the family. My sisters dressed like prom queens the minute they turned sixteen whereas I never really left my jeans behind.’

  ‘And you wear them because they remind you of your tree-climbing days?’ Rafael had a sudden, startling insight into her. Wearing that dress had shown her a vision of a world he was pretty sure she seldom visited. He didn’t know whether that made her more vulnerable to the charms of what money could buy and he didn’t care. He just had an insane desire to take her somewhere fancy for dinner. Some place where jeans would not be welcome. He thought of his apartment and the supply of appropriate clothes waiting there for him.

  ‘We need to find somewhere to change,’ he said abruptly. ‘We’ll end the day by going somewhere decent to eat.’

  ‘All this to save me from the trauma of having to face James?’ Amy remembered Claire’s questions earlier that day when she had asked why. Why had the gardener, to whom she wasn’t attracted and who wasn’t attracted to her, decided to put himself out to take her to Manhattan? He didn’t act as though he was interested in her, but just in case he started getting the wrong idea Amy decided to set him straight.

  ‘All this stuff,’ she began awkwardly.

  ‘Stuff?’

  ‘The dress. Now dinner. I hope you don’t think that…’

  ‘That…?’ Rafael guided her into a coffee shop where she gratefully dropped into a chair. Only problem was that she was now obliged to look him in the face when she talked to him. Very bad. Judging from the innocently curious expression on his face he wasn’t about to make things easy for her. Someone came to take their order and seemed excessively cheerful considering their modest request for two cups of unadorned filter coffee when the menu suggested that anything short of a latte was sacrilege.

  Rafael leant forward and proceeded to give her the full benefit of his undivided attention.

  Vaguely alarmed, Amy inched back and tried to get her scattered thoughts in order. What had she been thinking?

  ‘You were saying…?’ he asked with interest. ‘Shall I help you out?’ he volunteered into the growing silence and Amy gave a strangled response and a shrug that could have meant anything.

  He took it to mean that he could embarrass her further by leaning closer. ‘You don’t want me to think that I’m buying you because I’m buying you a cheap dress and something to eat…Not only am I a dinosaur out of touch with the real world, but I’m also caught up in the old-fashioned male way of thinking that dinner equals sex.’

  ‘No! That’s not what I meant!’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  Amy took refuge in a mouthful of coffee. Why had they come to a coffee shop? Why not a wine bar where she could have gulped back some restorative wine and found a bit of Dutch courage to continue the conversation? ‘Well, you can’t blame me, can you? I mean, it’s only fair to lay one’s cards on the table from the outset. That way there won’t be any misunderstandings and a girl has to look out for herself, don’t you agree?’ She wondered, in panic, how she could have the nerve to warn off a man most women would throw themselves at. No wonder his expression was one of surprised disbelief. She sternly reminded herself that it was imperative to lay down her ground rules irrespective of what he looked like.

  ‘What makes you think that you’re my type?’

  Amy’s mortification deepened. Rafael thought that she really did blush extremely well. Granted, James would probably only have seen her in her working clothes and his imagination led him to believe that her working clothes would be far from sexy, but how was it that his brother hadn’t been able to glimpse the tantalising woman behind the uniform? Rafael was slightly surprised considering James prided himself on his vast knowledge of the opposite sex.

  ‘I’m not your type any more than you’re mine,’ she said, thinking on her feet, ‘but I just don’t want any misunderstandings to occur.’

  ‘What is your type?’ Rafael asked. ‘James, I suppose?’

  Amy, in that split second, had a moment of terrible realisation. James wasn’t her type even though she had sincerely thought he was, even though he really was the sort of guy she usually went for, a guy who had the gift of the gab and didn’t take life too seriously. Yes, of course, they worked hard but they always knew how to have a good time. Guys like Freddie and those before him all the way down the years to when she had been a teenager dating the captain of the school sports team. If anyone had told her that she might one day be drawn to a man who hardly ever seemed to smile, never mind laugh, who didn’t possess a pair of jeans and with a CD collection she would hate to see, she would have laughed until she cried.

  All her boyfriends had been blond, for heaven’s sake! It was a standing joke in her family. How dared this cynical dark-haired man sneak up on her from behind and get under her skin?

  As she was still reeling from the thunderbolt, something else wormed its way out of hiding and filled her consciousness like a dangerous, toxic fog. Not only was she attracted to this least likely of men, but this least likely of men could prove to be the most lethal to her system because she reacted to him in a way she had never reacted to any boy or man in her life before. It was as if he made her three-dimensional. He could hurt her and Amy didn’t want to be hurt. She could see now that she had never been hurt before, not really, not in any meaningful way.

  ‘That’s right. James. He’s my type.’ How on earth could she be attracted to a man who rubbed her up the wrong way most of the time? Who seemed to enjoy silently laughing at her? ‘I’ve always been a sucker for blonde hair,’ she babbled on, staring at Rafael and feeling all her foundations swaying dangerously beneath her. He was sinfully sexy. How could she have blithely assumed that she would be immune to that just because he didn’t fit her norm? ‘Some people are like that, aren’t they? I’ve always gone for the fair-haired guy.’ She tried to look wistful, amused and sincere all at the same time. ‘I bet you’re the same.’ She pretended to scrutinise him. It was horribly easy to lose herself in the dark, rugged masculinity of his face. There was nothing pretty about him. Every feature was strongly delineated, from the slashing cheekbones and angular nose to the curving mouth and raven-dark hair swept away from his face. He was all man without benefit of moisturisers, hair gel or expensive cologne. She realised that she was losing track of what she was saying in the process of inspection, and she cleared her throat. ‘I bet…’ she drew out the syllables in a comical impersonation of a B-rated movie detective ‘…you go for brunettes. Yes. Outdoorsy brunettes who love nothing better than hiking up the side of a mountain or running in marathons. The sort who believe that make-up is a sin against Nature.’ She laughed, although she could feel her heart beating fast and her eyes drinking in his face, memo-rising every line for future reference.

  ‘James is not noted for his good reputation as far as women are concerned…’

  ‘Why do you keep acting as though you know him intimately?’ Although she was well aware that his track record wasn’t good. He surfaced frequently in the gossip columns of tabloid newspapers and there was always a dishy, leggy blonde on his arm. Now Amy knew why that had never particularly troubled her in the past, even though she had made all the right disgruntled noises to Claire. Because he had never really got under her skin. Not like this man.

  ‘Doesn’t that bother you?’ Rafael persisted.

  ‘Why should it?’ Amy said carelessly.

  ‘You mean you’re that convinced of your charms…?’

  ‘Oh, well—the way I see it is like this: James goes out with stereotypes. They’re all tall, they’re all blonde and they all look like they’ve stepped off the cover of Vogue magazine. So maybe he might be dazzled by the fact that I’m different…’ The theory, not that it mattered, was only now occurring to her, but, thinking about it, it made sense. She decided to elaborate on it as a means of backtracking from her embarrassing assertion that they should lay their c
ards on the table. As a way, too, of covering up the shocking revelation that the sexy images in her head had nothing to do with James.

  ‘I mean, think about it…’ She didn’t think that she had ever seen such fathomless dark eyes. A woman could lose herself in them. A fair few probably had and she wondered, jealously, what they had been like. Mountain-climbing amazons, as she had implied? ‘He might be bowled over by the novelty of a woman who bears no resemblance to anything from the cover of any magazine…’

  Bowled over by the novelty…

  Rafael was forcibly struck by the significance of her passing phrase. He didn’t know whether this was a theory she was working on or whether she had come to the Hamptons with the express purpose of putting it into practice, only to be derailed by finding him with another woman. Certainly, in either case it was a plan waiting in the wings for opportunity to meet circumstance.

  Something bristled inside him. James was a big boy and he could look after himself, but Rafael could feel the stirring of intent begin to crystallise inside him. He had been sent to the Hamptons on a mission to babysit his brother. His mother had been thinking of a far more straightforward babysitting job, but he was pretty sure that she would feel the same as he did now. That Amy must be kept away from James and remain that way. Permanently.

  His mobile phone vibrated and he excused himself, using the opportunity to pay the bill at the counter, snapping it shut as he approached her.

  ‘Don’t tell me…’ Amy stood up, her smile bright, over-bright, her eyes making a point of not leaving his face. ‘Your boss. Checking to make sure that you’ll be back out to work tomorrow, just in case your head gets turned by all the exciting things happening in Manhattan.’ She pictured him wearing the faded, low slung jeans she had insisted he buy and once the image was in her head, found it very difficult to release.

  Rafael murmured something that could have passed for agreement. ‘Oh, I think James knows what a loyal…employee I am,’ he said with a straight face. ‘In fact,’ he continued as they headed outside, straight into the furnace blast of pure New York summer, ‘I told him that we were overrunning on time and he very kindly offered us the use of the company apartment if we wanted to change before going out for a meal tonight…’ Well, today had certainly brought out a side to him he had never before explored. Work, a first for him, had taken a back seat and now he was about to lay the groundwork for seduction. The seduction of a woman who had stated, categorically, that she didn’t find him attractive.