One Summer At The Lake: Maid for Montero / Still the One / Hot-Shot Doc Comes to Town

‘So you would agree that the accommodation that comes with the job is not suitable.’

‘It’s fine.’ It was free and in the catchment area of the twins’ school, which made it not just fine but incredible!

His dark eyes sealed to hers as in interrogation mode he ran a hand across his jaw, shadowed with a day’s growth of stubble. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong…’

Oh, sure, I bet that happens a lot, she thought, struggling to keep her placid, perfect housekeeper smile pasted in place. She could see him now surrounded by little yes men falling over themselves to tell him how wonderful he was.

‘But I was under the impression that the housekeeper’s apartment had one bedroom?’

‘A very big bedroom, and it has a perfectly comfortable sofa bed in the living room.’

‘You sleep on a sofa bed?’

He could not have looked more appalled had she just announced she dossed down on a park bench or in a shop doorway.

‘The arrangement works very well.’ She smiled brightly in the face of his undisguised scepticism. If he was looking for an excuse to give her the push, she wasn’t going to give him any. ‘I’m always up before the twins, and they are in bed before me.’ It wasn’t a room of her own that kept Zoe awake at night, it was balancing her budget.

‘In other words it is a perfect arrangement.’

Zoe pretended not to recognise the dry sarcasm. ‘Not perfect,’ she conceded calmly. ‘But a workable compromise.’ Like he knew a lot about compromise, she thought, but, smothering the prickle of antagonism, she continued serenely, ‘And if you’re thinking that the twins have a negative impact on my work, actually the reverse is true.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Having a family and responsibilities makes me ultra-reliable.’ And totally lacking in pride, suggested the scornful voice in her head.

‘You mean you need this job so you’ll bite back the insult hovering even now on the tip of your tongue.’ His hooded dark eyes slid to the soft full outline of her quite spectacularly sexy lips.

The words hovering on the tip of Zoe’s tongue involved telling him to stop staring at her mouth.

She found herself thinking with nostalgia of the days when her temporary cash shortages had been dealt with by not buying the pair of shoes she’d been drooling over, or cutting back on the number of coffees she bought in a week. Things were no longer so simple. She was still reeling over the cost of new school uniforms for the twins, who had both shot up the previous term.

‘You are speaking as if this arrangement is permanent. I assumed the children were spending their holiday with you.’

And I could have let him continue assuming that—the man is here so rarely he wouldn’t have known the difference—but no, I had to go open my big mouth.

‘No. They are my sister’s children.’ She swallowed. She didn’t discuss the details of the accident that had killed her sister and her husband or mention the underage drunk driver going the wrong way on the motorway who had been responsible for the simple fact that she was afraid if she did she would start shouting. ‘She and her husband died. I’m the children’s guardian.’

‘I am sorry.’

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

According to the grief counsellor anger was normal…It would pass, she said. There might be a time when she would stop being angry, but six months after that terrible day Zoe could not imagine a time when she would come to terms with it, stop wanting to beat her bare fists against a brick wall at the sheer terrible waste.

‘You are very young to have such responsibilities.’

‘That’s relative, isn’t it?’ Only last week Zoe had watched a programme that followed a week in the life of children who were the main carers for their disabled parents. It had made her feel ashamed—compared to them she had it easy.

‘Surely there is someone more suitable who could take care of these children?’ He scanned her up and down and shook his head.

‘My sister was my only family and Dan didn’t have any family. It’s me or social services.’ She’d do what it took to stop that happening. The children would enjoy the sort of childhood she’d had…It was far too short as it was.

Zoe closed her eyes, remembering Laura’s face the day she met Dan, and swallowed, concentrating on the anger, not the pain, as the same old question followed—why? Why Laura of all people in the world? Why did it have to be her?

He eyed her beautiful face cynically. ‘I am assuming that housekeeping was not a career choice for you.’

Zoe moistened her lips, trying to decide what the right answer to this question was. In the end she kept it simple and honest.

‘I never really knew what I wanted to do with my life.’

There had never seemed any hurry to make up her mind. She liked to travel; she liked new experiences and meeting new people.

Well, now it was her turn to step up to the mark and, yes, she would beg and be tearfully grateful to this awful man. She would grovel if necessary, even if it killed her. She would do whatever it took to keep her family together.

She gave a quietly confident smile. ‘But I never give any less than a hundred per cent, and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep this job…Anything,’ she added fiercely.

‘Anything…?’

Something in the way he said it made her feel less secure, but she wouldn’t back down—she couldn’t. She nodded.

‘Absolutely.’

Expression impassive, he brushed an invisible speck off his dark top with long brown fingers.

‘“Anything” covers a lot of territory so if you’re offering sexual favours I should tell you I normally get it for free.’

Zoe’s hands curled into tight fists at her sides as she breathed through the energising rush of anger. He was taunting her, but he knew full well she couldn’t respond and in her book that made the man a bully. She rubbed the hand that tingled to slap the expression of amused disdain off his smug, impossibly handsome face, and tilted her chin to an enquiring angle.

But would she…?

She pushed away the question and willed herself not to blush, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of seeing her squirm. At least she was safe from any unwanted attentions—the man was obviously too much of a snob to consider sleeping with the help.

But if he did?

Her body reacted to the unspoken question and Zoe had no more chance of halting the visceral chain reaction than she did stopping her fingers jerking back from a hot object.

Taking a deep breath, she brought her lashes down in a protective sweep and wrapped her arms across her middle in a hugging gesture, glad that she was wearing a loose-fitting top. She was saved the added embarrassment of having her shamefully engorged nipples on view, but it didn’t stop her being painfully conscious of the chafing discomfort of her bra or the heavy liquid ache low in her pelvis.

Closing down this internal dialogue as her temperature rose, Zoe managed to break contact with his disturbing steely stare and lifted her shoulders in a tiny shrug.

‘Jokes aside, I can promise you I shall be totally professional.’

He arched a brow and didn’t look convinced by her claim. She felt panic trickle down her spine and thought, God, please don’t let him change his mind.

‘You won’t be sorry.’ Her fingernails gouged crescents into the soft flesh of her palms as she held her breath awaiting his response, feeling like a prisoner in the dock waiting to hear his sentence read out.

His tall figure framed in the doorway, Isandro turned. He already was regretting it.

‘I am sorry for your loss, but I have to tell you I do not allow sentiment to sway my judgement, so do not expect any special favours here.’