by Kim Lawrence
There was a long silence while Raul stared at her. ‘And you think I…flaunt it?’
Though his tone was flat, remarkable for a lack of emotion rather than an excess, there was something there that made Nell suspect she had offended him. Yet again!
‘Well, I did,’ Nell admitted frankly. ‘But you’re not flash.’ No, Raul was quite simply class.
‘Thank you.’ Though his manner was grave, there was a faint quiver in his deep voice.
‘I realise now that you don’t even think about appearances. Your motivation for driving expensive cars and nice clothes isn’t to have people look at you. You don’t actually care what other people think about you.’
He didn’t deny this mildly wistful observation. ‘But Katerina does?’
‘That hardly makes her unique.’
‘And you would have me believe that having money makes Katerina feel uncomfortable…?’
Nell could understand his scepticism; it must be hard for someone brought up with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth to appreciate how people not used to that lifestyle might find it hard to adjust to.
She nodded. ‘And a bit guilty.’
‘Guilty?’ he ejaculated. His dark gaze swept over her heart-shaped face. He thrust his hands into his pockets as the impulse to take that face between his hands became all-consuming. ‘Are you sure you are not just endowing her with your own overdeveloped social conscience?’
‘I don’t have an overdeveloped social conscience.’
‘No…?’ One dark brow rose. ‘You are the biggest sucker for a hard-luck story I’ve ever seen,’ he condemned.
‘I’m not!’
‘What about the homeless guy you gave money to who turned around and stole your wallet and phone, then for good measure knocked you down…?’ The story casually related by his nephew had made Raul’s blood boil, and he hadn’t even been able to relieve his feelings by laying violent hands on the vermin who had performed the cowardly deed.
Nell’s eyes went wide with astonishment. The incident he described had happened a couple of years earlier. ‘How on earth…? And he didn’t knock me down, he gave a little push and I fell over.’
Raul gave a groan and pushed his fingers into his dark hair before ripping the unfastened tie from his neck and throwing it onto the desk. Muttering under his breath in Spanish, he stalked over to the window.
Nell watched his progress covertly from under the sweep of her lashes. The way he moved brought a sleek jungle cat to mind…an angry sleek jungle cat, she mentally amended as he spun around and pinned her with blazing and furious black eyes.
‘That’s exactly what I mean. You are a soft touch, no—you are a soft touch with very little judgement. In fact you are not fit to be let out without a minder!’ he contended grimly.
His unwarranted and rancorous attack made her blanch. She knew he didn’t like her, that she irritated him, but it seemed he actually hated her, she thought miserably. She had started thinking lately that anything from him would be better than the polite indifference she had been receiving. She was wrong.
This cleared up the mystery of why he had been avoiding her—he obviously couldn’t stand the sight of her. Well, bang goes the theory that he is actually struggling to hide a growing attraction. There was wishful thinking and then again there was gross stupidity.
‘Aren’t you losing track here? We were talking about Kate.’
Raul looked at her blankly. ‘What?’
Her brows lifted. ‘Your niece.’
Twin dark bands of colour appeared along the slant of his sculpted cheekbones.
‘Don’t worry, I’m sure she’ll get used to being part of a wealthy dynasty. Actually,’ Nell added, thinking wryly of how easy she had found it to take very much for granted the touches of luxury that had seemed like the height of decadence when she had moved in, ‘she’ll get to like it.’
‘So I should not offer to drive them to school myself?’
‘That would be different. You’re…’
One dark brow rose quizzically. ‘I am…?’
Nell blushed. ‘Well, let’s just say it would do no teenage girl’s reputation any harm to be seen getting out of a car driven by you.’
‘Is that a compliment?’
Nell dragged her thoughts away from the devastating charm of his smile. ‘Just a comment on the shallowness of your average teenage girl. Now, did you want me for anything else?’ she asked with a hunted look at the elegantly curving stairs.
Raul’s eyes saw the direction of her gaze and correctly interpreted her desire to escape. His lips twisted into a self-derisive smile. ‘I want you…’
Nell’s tummy flipped. Heart hammering, breath trapped in her tight chest, she slowly turned her head. The muscles along Raul’s jaw tightened as he returned her stare.
‘In the library.’
Chastising herself for letting her imagination run away with her, and feeling uncomfortably like a pupil summoned to the headmaster’s office, Nell followed him. Raul, courteous but cold, stood to one side to allow a maid carrying a great pile of glossy magazines and the latest financial periodicals to enter ahead of them.
Nell could see that the boss’s presence was making the poor girl, who she knew had only been working here for a few weeks, nervous. Small wonder she was, Nell thought, angling a meaningful frown towards Raul, who stood there, impatience radiating from every elegant line of his imposing figure. Couldn’t he see she was scared stiff of him? Well, if he did he was making no attempt to put her at her ease.
It didn’t seem to register with Raul when the girl knocked a fragile—probably priceless—figurine off the bureau with her elbow. She looked as though she was going to burst into tears. Nell took pity on her.
‘Gloria, give those to me,’ she demanded, hefting the girl’s burden into her own arms. ‘And don’t worry, I’ll get rid of the old ones for you. How did the party go? Did John turn up?’
Gloria gave a conspiratorial grin. ‘Yes, and she was livid because he didn’t even look at her…’
Her employer clearing his throat noisily prevented Nell hearing the rest of this girlish confidence. The girl shot an apologetic look in Raul’s direction. Her smile for Nell held sympathy as she ducked out of the room.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Raul demanded icily as Nell began to arrange the magazines on the table in neat piles.
‘What does it look like?’ She didn’t glance in his direction, but as she continued to fuss she could feel the invisible rays of his disapproval and impatience boring into her back.
‘Will you stop that, woman?’
Nell had finished, but his terse tone perversely made her rearrange things once more, slowly and precisely.
‘Did you hear what I said?’
‘Yes.’
She heard the harsh sound of his angry inhalation, but did not regret her provocative behaviour. Life was bad enough as it was, but if he got the idea that all he had to do was click his fingers and she would jump life really would be unbearable. She had so little control of other aspects of her life, namely being so forcefully attracted to a man who regarded her as an irritant, that it felt important to show she did have a choice about other things.
Nell let out a startled cry of protest when, without warning, Raul stepped forward and bodily lifted her away as if she weighed nothing. Having casually planted her several feet away, he positioned himself directly in front of her. Then without breaking eye contact he lifted his arm and knocked the magazines she had taken so much care with flying across the room.
She looked at the mess on the floor and gave a derisive little sniff. ‘Do you feel better now?’
The words snagged in her throat as she looked up at him. He really was stunning, she reflected with an inward sigh as she drank in the details: golden skin drawn taut over slashing cheekbones, that wide, sensual mouth and his incredible extravagantly dark eyes that were shimmering with anger.
With an effort she focused her
thoughts. ‘If you’ve had a rough night, don’t take it out on me. I have to tell you a grown man having a full-blown temper tantrum is not a pretty sight.’
She stooped down to pick up a magazine that had landed at her feet.
‘It is not your job to pick things up,’ he growled. ‘I employ people to do that.’
Nell rose gracefully to her feet. ‘I have hands.’ She held them out palm up to demonstrate the fact. ‘I am not incapable,’ she told him scornfully. ‘When I drop things I pick them up myself. I don’t ring for someone else to do it for me.’
‘That is not what I meant.’
‘Then what did you mean?’
He glowered at her with every appearance of intense dislike. ‘Must you gossip with the servants? It is not appropriate,’ he told her severely. ‘You make them uncomfortable.’
‘I wasn’t gossiping, I was talking, trying to put the poor girl at her ease. You were the one terrifying her.’
‘I do not scare people,’ he said through gritted teeth, looking as though he would dearly like to throttle her.
‘What about poor Gloria? She was shaking, poor girl.’
‘Who is Gloria?’
‘You are terrible.’
After a few moments of mutual glaring Nell sighed; honesty made her unable to ignore the facts. It was impossible for her to live in the house for as long as she had without recognising that he was a good and reasonable employer who was always meticulously polite to his staff and treated them with a respect that was returned.
‘I know you don’t do it deliberately,’ she admitted. ‘It’s just your manner. It can be a little bit daunting.’
His narrowed eyes swept her face with an expression of frustration. ‘Pity it doesn’t work on you,’ he retorted testily.
This uncharacteristically childish retort made her stare. She watched as he took a deep breath and smoothed back the rumpled hair from his brow. The details of something as simple as the shape of his hands and the fine, tapering length of his long, sensitive fingers were endlessly fascinating to her.
‘However, that is not why I wish to speak to you.’
Nell dragged her attention back to his face. He just stared at her; there was a dangerous, explosive quality to his dark, brooding regard.
She was relieved when he broke the nerve-shredding silence.
‘I did not realise, until my mother told me, how much you have taken on.’
‘Taken on?’ she echoed with a puzzled frown.
‘You are not expected to spend your entire day running around after Antonio and Katerina, and there is no need for you to sit and read aloud to my mother for hours or sort out domestic crises.’
‘I enjoy reading aloud to your mother,’ Nell protested.
He dismissed her protest with a movement of his hand. ‘That is not what I intended when I asked you to move in.’
‘What, me enjoy myself?’
He slid her a look that made her flush.
‘It is not appropriate that you are on call around the clock.’
‘Hardly that! I’ve loads of time to myself. Antonio and Kate are at school most of the time.’
‘You take them there and pick them up, and in between are being used as an unpaid helper at school,’ he declared disapprovingly.
‘It’s a good idea for parents to be involved,’ she protested.
‘You are not a parent.’
Nell flinched. ‘Oh, I see.’
She did, and she was totally mortified that it had taken her this long to catch on. Raul had been trying to tell her that she was overstepping the mark, that she had been encroaching in areas where she was not wanted. She wasn’t the children’s mother; she wasn’t even paid help!
He was right, of course; it was wrong of her to allow the children to become reliant on her. She wasn’t going to be here for ever.
A flicker of concern entered Raul’s eyes as he studied her face. ‘You understand what I am saying?’
Nell swallowed and lifted her chin. ‘Absolutely,’ she replied with a resolute little smile.
‘You need some leisure time.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
WHICH sounded very generous, but as far as Nell was concerned was nothing but a polite way of saying, Remember your place and keep your distance—which was why at that moment Nell was swimming laps in the private indoor pool.
The next time Raul asked her she would be able to supply evidence that she had been following his instructions.
Nell had just about finished doing her laps when she became aware that she was not alone. She swam to the side of the pool and, hands braced on the tiled pool-edge, levered herself out—or at least tried to. Her arms felt weak after the unaccustomed exertion and it took her two attempts to heave herself out of the water.
‘Hi there.’
Nell, lying face down in an ungainly heap, feeling very like the human version of a beached whale on the tiled surface, stared at the long, slim legs of the woman standing beside her.
‘Miss…’ Nell scrambled into an upright position, taking the towel the blonde handed her with a small smile of thanks.
The actress didn’t comment on the greeting; obviously her fame was such she took such recognition very much for granted.
‘You must be the nanny.’ Her curiosity as she examined the younger woman’s face and figure was quite unself-conscious.
Nell, who never had quite defined what her role in the Carreras household was, didn’t correct her.
‘So using the pool is a perk of the job.’
Nell, who would have been quick to pick up such things, could not detect any condescension in her friendly manner.
‘This is quite a set-up, isn’t it?’ Roxie continued, gazing around the lavish pool area, which came complete with columns, waterfall and spa pool. Her Grecian-inspired gown, one-shouldered and virtually backless, was rather appropriate for the décor. ‘And you swim really well,’ she added generously.
‘Thank you.’ Not only stunningly beautiful, nice too—a real sickener.
‘It made me tired just watching you.’
‘I like the water.’ And swimming yourself into exhaustion made it easier to sleep. At least in theory.
So this was the sort of woman Raul found attractive. The actress was actually much more attractive in the flesh than on the screen. She was also much thinner and had the longest legs that Nell had ever seen, made even longer by the incredibly high heels she was wearing at the moment. Barely topping five two in her bare feet, dripping wet and wearing a black swimming costume that was utilitarian rather than fashionable, Nell felt at a distinct disadvantage.
Nell usually found exercise left her feeling pretty upbeat but on this occasion there was no post-work-out high, just an oppressive cloud of gloom over her head.
‘I love swimming too; it’s great for your boobs,’ Roxie explained, making a breast-stroke motion in the air.
It didn’t seem to Nell as her eyes automatically slid over the perky contours of the actress’s generous breasts that she needed any help in that area. Hers, on the other hand, she thought, glancing miserably at her own moderate-sized breasts flattened by the Lycra of her swimsuit, could do with a bit of help.
‘The problem with swimming is the chemicals in the water,’ the actress continued earnestly.
Nell tried to look interested as Roxie went on to explain in an authoritative manner about the additives that were put in pool water; she included a good deal of technical information about PH factors.
‘I didn’t know that,’ Nell admitted. Beautiful and not dumb…though maybe slightly boring? She immediately felt mean for the catty thought.
‘It plays havoc with coloured hair, don’t you find?’ Roxie asked, her eyes fixed on the wet-darkened red strands that Nell was towelling dry. ‘I love that shade you have, by the way.’
‘It’s actually red when it’s dry,’ Nell admitted.
‘I know. I saw you the other day taking the kids out. We waved, but you didn’t
see us.’
‘Oh, really.’ Actually there had been no ‘we’. Raul hadn’t waved, just his blonde companion, and Nell had studiously pretended not to see them. She felt as if her guilt was written all over her face.
‘You know, you shouldn’t wear baggy sweaters with a waist like that.’ Pale blue eyes focused on Nell’s narrow waist and flat, trim tummy.
‘I’ll try and remember.’
‘And use a protective serum on your hair. I had an awful experience when I went swimming at Cannes. My hair went orange…honestly, totally orange!’ She shuddered at the memory. ‘Leo flew straight out, of course, and he was livid with me.’
‘Mine’s natural,’ Nell cut in apologetically.
The other girl’s eyes widened. ‘You’re kidding!’ she exclaimed. ‘No highlights?’ Nell shook her head. ‘Low lights?’ Roxie shook her head in amazement. ‘Incredible! If you ever do fancy having a change…’ Head on one side, she weighed up an increasingly uncomfortable Nell with an expert eye. ‘You’d really look good blonde, you know.’
‘I don’t think—’ Nell began.
‘No, trust me on this, you’d look great, and if you mention my name to Leo—he’s my colourist and the only one I’d let touch mine—’ she lifted a complacent hand to her honey-blonde head ‘—he’d fit you in as a favour to me.’ She stopped, a slow smile spreading over her breathtakingly lovely features as her gaze drifted to a point somewhere over Nell’s shoulder.
‘Raul, darling,’ the actress cried as she ran towards the approaching figure.
Nell, who had no desire whatever to witness the delight she’d seen on the other woman’s face expressed in a more physical form, kept her back turned to them and hastily pulled her towel protectively around herself.