Housekeeper at His Command: The Spaniard's Virgin Housekeeper / His Pregnant Housekeeper / The Maid and the Millionaire

Suddenly the room seemed airless. Cayo’s formidable presence dominated the space with the unmistakable aura of the alpha male—born to lead, to take on all comers without batting an eyelid. For some unknown reason it made her feel decidedly dizzy, and she felt herself flush with some strange emotion she couldn’t put a name to. She turned away to take another shirt from the laundry basket, with the image of the way he looked—six foot plus of prime Spanish manhood, from the commanding width of his shoulders tapering down to a narrow waist, slinky hips and impressively long, elegantly trousered legs—indelibly printed on her retina.

‘I have spoken at length with Dr Menendez, who gave me the results of the tests you underwent, Tio,’ he announced, his tone so authoritative she could have smacked him.

Wandering farther into the room, he absorbed the cosy domestic scene. Miguel in the battered old armchair that had stood just inside the door for as long as he could remember, watching the Angel of Mercy ironing his shirts.

She was working to a different agenda from the one she had employed with Augustin del Amo, for sure. A real Miss Goody-Two-Shoes—caring and competent, catering to an elderly man’s domestic comforts, delectable, with enticing strands of the spun-silver-gilt hair escaping the ribbon arrangement she’d pinned it back with. Her luscious curves were clad in a bog-standard T-shirt and cotton skirt, not overtly flaunting her steamy sexuality as her clothes would have done when she’d attempted to snare a rich banker, because those tactics wouldn’t work with the elderly scholar.

Clever.

But he was smarter. By a cartload he was smarter!

Kill two birds with one stone. First get Tio Miguel to agree to move to the luxurious Castillo de las Palomas, where he could continue his work and be looked after by attentive staff who would cater to his every need. Cayo would suggest he took his housekeeper with him as companion because, judging by what he’d seen and heard, his uncle was already fond of the little tramp. He felt comfortable with her, and in all likelihood would dig his heels in and refuse to go anywhere if it meant his housekeeper was to be cast out on the street.

Then he would seduce Izzy Makepeace away from her intention to get her claws into the older man—no hardship, because the sultry, passionate fullness of her lips belied the wide, childlike innocence of those big blue eyes, and he had never suffered difficulties in that direction. Quite the opposite. The ease with which he seemed to attract simpering females anxious to do anything to please him had bored him since his hormones had run riot in his teens.

He would seduce her, make sure his uncle knew what was happening, and then make sure she was well and truly finished with.

His mouth tightened. He didn’t like it. It felt uncomfortably like cruelty, and he had always prided himself on being straightforward in both personal and business dealings. But if he had to fight dirty he would. For his uncle’s sake, he would.

Swinging round to face them, he stated, ‘In view of what I learned from Menendez, I have a proposition to make.’

CHAPTER FOUR

IZZY folded the last of the shirts as a fierce stab of anxiety skittered its way through her entire body. This darkly handsome thoroughbred male looked as out of place in these shabby surroundings as a brilliant-cut diamond in a sack of potatoes. She was sure that whatever he proposed would bode no good for her. Cayo wanted her out of his uncle’s home, and he didn’t look the kind of guy who would give up easily.

‘Tio—’ Half sitting on the chunky table, he was addressing his relative.

Izzy, her ears tingling for the expected list of her supposed and damning sins, embellished with a strongly voiced suggestion that she be thrown back on the street where she belonged, permitted herself a tiny sigh of relief when he said gently, ‘Menendez tells me that your heart problem was occasioned by the rheumatic fever you had as a child. At the time, apparently, the condition went unrecognised. You can live with it, he assures me, provided you take care. Something you haven’t done for years—’

‘Ah, but things have changed,’ Miguel interrupted smartly. ‘Unlike poor old Benita, whose sins of omission escaped me, Izzy makes sure I am looked after splendidly! Provided she agrees to stay on—at an increased rate of payment—we will be very comfortable together. You mustn’t worry.’

‘But I do,’ Cayo countered firmly. ‘Have done for years. You are of my family—blood of my blood. I care about you and I worry,’ he incised, with a telling movement of one lean, bronzed hand. ‘I have asked before—not with as much vigour as I should have done, perhaps—and this time I will insist. You must move to the cooler air of the mountains, at least during the debilitating heat of the summer. And who knows? You might be sensible enough to make it your permanent home. At the Castillo de las Palomas you will enjoy every comfort and luxury. As you well know, there are willing staff to cater to your every need. And there is also an excellent library, so you may continue your work, if you wish, in guaranteed privacy and peace. As far as I can see there is nothing, apart from your pig-headedness, to stop you behaving sensibly and in your own best interests.’

Grateful for the absence—so far—of the verbal assault she’d been expecting, and amazed that her slating opinion had actually moved Cayo to doing something about his uncle’s wellbeing, Izzy held her breath.

She was unprepared for the elderly man’s stubbornness. Despite being obviously touched by his nephew’s offer, evidenced by the sudden moistness of his dark eyes, he declined. ‘I’m grateful for your concern, Cayo. Truly. But we are comfortable here, and you know how I dislike any kind of upheaval.’

Emboldened by the look Cayo turned to give her—his brows lifting in obvious frustration, his smile wry, as if they were on the same side for once—Izzy put in, ‘Can I say something? It sounds just what the doctor ordered, Miguel—honestly.’

Feeling Cayo’s gaze upon her, she met the flash of a very definite query in his spectacularly eloquent eyes and ignored it. That she would be jobless and homeless again didn’t count against the old gentleman being properly looked after. She’d manage somehow. Miguel would have no need of a housekeeper—not with Cayo’s ‘willing staff’—and if his uncle could be persuaded to make the move he would have won, got rid of her supposedly poisonous presence without the outlay of a single euro of the bribe he’d so insultingly offered her.

The thought of him winning made her want to stamp her feet and scream! Yet despite that she knew that urging Miguel to accept the offer was the right thing to do.

She’d risen to the challenge of her present job—warmed to the concept of being a real help, useful and valued for once in her life—but she’d always meant to leave when she was satisfied that her old gentleman would be looked after and not left alone to his own absent-minded devices.

She was stunned when the man who had vowed to make her regret the day she was born now imparted, with the silken confidence of one who knew a weak spot when he saw one and had no hesitation in going straight for it, ‘I know you better than you realise, Tio. In the past you have always refused my repeated offers because you have a kind heart—one of the gentlest and kindest, I know. To have availed yourself of comfortable surroundings and the best care would have meant dismissing Benita. So I suggest—urge—that you now bring Izzy with you, as your paid companion.’

Stunned by his suggestion, Izzy was left breathless when he turned again to her and gave her a smile of such dazzling brilliance that she came over all feverish. She could hardly believe what she was hearing as he continued, ‘That way you won’t be throwing her out of work and making her homeless, so your conscience won’t give you indigestion! And I will be more than happy to welcome her as a guest in my home.’

Her mouth made an O of sheer astonishment as she stared at his dark, strong and shatteringly sexy features, searching for clues to his totally out-of-character behaviour. Her jumbled brain cells barely registered Miguel’s amused reply. ‘In that case, I agree. My hardworking housekeeper deserves a summer break after all her kindness to a foolish old man.’

She only scrambled for her senses after Cayo’s elegantly long legs had carried him to the door, with the information that he was heading back to his apartment to await an expected fax from Hong Kong, but would be in touch later to make the necessary arrangements for their removal to his mountain home.

Closing her still gaping mouth, she watched him leave. He was up to something. Something devious. And that was scary. He’d offered her money to leave, called her names, and made it plain that he thought her a species of low-life—and yet here he was, actually smiling at her, saying he’d welcome her as a guest in his no-doubt palatial home. A castle, no less. It made no sense at all.

‘You’ve made the right decision,’ she told the older man. ‘From what your nephew said it sounds as if you’ll have every comfort and care, and he seems genuinely fond of you.’ She conceded this somewhat unwillingly, because she didn’t want to admit there was anything remotely human or caring about the guy—at least where she was concerned. ‘He’ll be glad to provide for you,’ she went on, ‘but count me out. I can’t go with you. You won’t need a housekeeper. I’d only be a freeloader. I’d rather earn an honest crust, and I’ll soon find another job, you’ll see,’ she ended, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt.

‘I understand,’ Miguel responded flatly. ‘But if that’s your decision I won’t go either. We’ll carry on as we are.’ His angular face softened in a smile. ‘In fact, now I come to think of it, I’m perfectly happy where I am.’

The penny dropped. Cayo must have foreseen this, she realised sinkingly. After all, he had to know his relative far better than she did. Hadn’t he intimated that the only reason the old gentleman hadn’t taken up his offer before had been because his uncle’s tender conscience wouldn’t have been easy if he’d made his previous housekeeper unemployed? Probably unemployable, judging by the state his humble little home had been in when Izzy had first set eyes on it.

In all probability Miguel would have confided in his nephew—told him of her own sorry circumstances when they’d first met—leading the younger man to realise that, having taken in a waif and stray, his gentle, soft-hearted uncle wasn’t about to throw her out on the street!

Hence the amazing suggestion that she tag along, too, until he thought up some spectacularly nasty way to get rid of her! It made perfect sense.

Nothing else for it in the circumstances. But she was confident that once her old gentleman got settled in comfortable surroundings, with three good meals a day produced like clockwork, and no more scrimping and scraping, he would accept a sudden bout of homesickness, or a fictitious job offer back in her own country. Her decision to leave would be made before Cayo had worked out how to get her thrown out of his aristocratic home and probably out of the country. So, ignoring her better judgement, she told him breezily, ‘If you insist on being stubborn then, okay—I’ll go along, too. I’ve never lived in a castle before—should be fun. When do we go? Did he say?’

The opulent chauffeur-driven car took the steep gradients with effortless ease and, having finally overcome her fear of the hairpin bends and terrifying sheer drops, Izzy began to relax and enjoy the ever-changing vista. Precipitous mountains dropped to deep river valleys hazed over with the silvery green of olive groves and the deeper green of forest trees, occasionally broken by the clustered rooftops of picturesque villages.

She would relax and go with the flow, she decided. Something she was good at, apparently. Her full lips curved into an amused smile as she recalled one of many lectures delivered by her father. ‘Unlike James, you have no direction! You meander through life, drifting from one dead-end job to another—have you no ambition?’

Not of the academic kind. There was no way she could compete with her older, cleverer, much praised and doted-upon brother, so she didn’t even try.

What her parents had never understood was that she did have an ambition. To fall in love, marry the man she loved, create a home together filled with warmth and love, and have children together. Children who would be equally adored and cherished, regardless of talent or lack thereof.

So far it was an unfulfilled ambition. The boys she’d dated in her teens had only been interested in one thing. Suspecting that because of her generous curves, and what James had once scathingly described as her ‘blond bimbo looks’, they’d clearly thought she would have been easy to get into bed and she’d steered clear, and put her secret ambition on hold until she’d met Marcus. She’d believed he was the one—that he really liked her, valued her. And he’d never tried to get her into the bedroom, which surely had to mean he’d respected her? In her mind’s eye she had pictured his tall blond figure waiting as she floated up the aisle.

Alarmingly, the remembered and now despised image faded, and a tall dark figure, stiff with Spanish pride, took its place. Izzy gulped, and blinked the fleeting mind picture away with extreme violence.

To add to her discomfiture, Miguel said from beside her, in an excruciatingly embarrassing coincidence, ‘My nephew really should cease his unemotional, businesslike arrangements with his occasional mistresses and take a wife. Las Palomas is exquisite, but sterile in its beauty. It needs a family to bring it to life. He will be there, waiting for us, and I shall tell him so. When the time is right.’ He chuckled, as if something had amused him.

Too mortified by the mental image her subconscious had thrown up to respond directly, she asked instead, just to change the subject, ‘You are familiar with his castle?’

‘I was born there,’ was his lightly dismissive response. ‘It has been in our family for many generations. I left to attend university in England, and after gaining my doctorate I lectured. America, mainly. I rarely visited my family, and after the deaths of my parents—one shortly following the other, sadly—I never went again. Roman, my brother who was Cayo’s father, had the use of Las Palomas while I preferred to live the quiet life of a humble scholar. The family have great wealth—’

‘Let me get this straight,’ Izzy butted in, wriggling round in her seat to face him more squarely, her brow pleated as she tried to follow what he was saying. Her voice was sharp with outrage on her old gentleman’s behalf. ‘You mean your brother got the lot—wealth and the castle and everything—and you got nothing?’

‘Good heavens, child! What gave you that idea? As the oldest son I inherited vast landed estates, while Roman took over the shipping business—which I believe Cayo has expanded massively since his father passed away. He also finds time to manage the income from my estates—investments and suchlike. I have never been interested in the acquisition of material wealth. I have annual meetings with Cayo and his money men, and although I am grateful for my nephew’s husbandry I must admit I find it all tedious. In any case,’ he added more cheerfully, ‘all I own will pass to Cayo in time, which is as it should be. The Garcia estates, properties and businesses will be under one ownership again, not divided.’

Her ready tongue stilled by Miguel’s disclosure, Izzy struggled to get her thoughts in order. She ignored her companion’s comments on the landmarks they were passing with aristocratic stateliness.

Despite all appearances the elderly man wasn’t dirt-poor, struggling to exist on a pittance. He had to be loaded!

For the first time since she had known him she wanted to shake him! So, okay, he wasn’t interested in money—given his other-worldliness, she could go along with that—but the thought of the way she’d boasted about her canniness in going to the market minutes before it closed to take advantage of stallholders who were virtually giving produce away made her feel such a fool. He might have taken the opportunity—and there had been many—to tell her that such frugality wasn’t necessary, or at least to enquire if the housekeeping allowance was so inadequate that it required such desperate measures.

She could forgive all that—laugh about it, even—but the misunderstanding had had dire consequences.

Cayo had believed those lies. Izzy Makepeace had been thrown out on her ear because she’d been trying to seduce a respectable banker and ensconce herself as his paid mistress, and next he’d heard she’d turned up as his wealthy uncle’s housekeeper.